


A Jet Engine to the Center of the Storm

by raggedypanda



Series: Rescued: A Bucky Barnes-centric Trilogy [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, F/M, Gen, Multi, Original Character(s), Other, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, but this is about the characters and their growth and the whole team too, ok I'm done talking through tags now, very slow
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:29:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 43,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24836167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raggedypanda/pseuds/raggedypanda
Summary: After SHIELD falls and HYDRA is exposed, the Winter Soldier runs and reclaims himself as Bucky Barnes. Bucky has a mission: decrypt the information Agent Romanov dumped on the internet and find and destroy any remnants of HYDRA. After months of taking down bases and leaving a signal for the Avengers to come do clean up something changes when he finds HYDRA is still experimenting on people. When he discovers one survivor, he leaves her so that Steve and the others can help her.This is her story.This is his story.This is the start of their story.(Stays largely canon compliant to Ragnarok, and then things get interesting. This is the first installment of a three-story series featuring Bucky Barnes and the Avengers team)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Original Character(s), James "Bucky" Barnes/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Rescued: A Bucky Barnes-centric Trilogy [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1796527
Comments: 12
Kudos: 29





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic in years, my first fic in the MCU. But the outline for all three stories in this series have been kicking around my brain for a long time. It is woefully unbeta'd. Please be kind.

He hardly registered the voices around him. They ranged from angry shouts and frightened pleas, but they all fell on his ears as dull whispers. He hadn’t come to hurt anyone, but he had no qualms about it either. 

Bucky had only come for answers. And therefore anyone in his way needed to be removed.

Memories had been coming back to him in tiny flashes. But it was like putting together a puzzle that had over a million tiny pieces. 

Every once and a while though, something would come back and knock him on his ass like a ton of bricks. Normally that had to do with Steve. But this time it came in the form of a doctor, though he would have used that term loosely. 

The hack mad scientist who’d helped HYDRA once Zola was gone. 

He didn’t remember names but he recalled the sick glee that came across the man’s face when he’d been taken out of cryo only to be poked and prodded - to see how far he could be pushed. These hadn’t been for missions. They had solely been for experimentation - either to improve him or push him to his breaking point. Now and then they would pit him against another asset just to test his opponent. 

The memories came back so vividly and, like a reflex, his hand had quickly wrapped around the doctor’s throat, before the first syllable of the first trigger word slipped past his lips. 

The base itself triggered more vague recollections. The cold concrete walls and floors, the smell of chemicals. The smell of death. 

Bodies were piled in the corner. Pale skin covered by medical gowns -- failed experiments of no more use to cruel, radicalized, and delusional men. 

He moved past the pile without a second glance, making his way towards the computer terminals. 

* * *

_Computers had been an interesting thing for him to try to understand after dragging Steve from the river._

_He’d laid low for several days, most of which were like a blur now, before going to the Smithsonian. It was there he verified that the man on the bridge - Captain America - hadn’t been lying. He’d had a life before becoming the Winter Soldier._

_Wanting to know more, he figured that he could go to one place to look for more answers._

_Libraries couldn’t have changed that much, right?_

_Except libraries had changed that much. It wasn’t just rows of books and card catalogues anymore. There were computer terminals for looking up information and he stared at them apprehensively._

_Of course, some things came as naturally as riding a bike. Apparently, over the decades, his missions had included some reconnaissance and so using the computer wasn’t as daunting as he originally assumed. It was as if he remembered all of the steps but retained no recollection of actually accessing a computer before._

_Black Widow had dumped the majority of the S.H.I.E.L.D and HYDRA files on the internet and there was so much to go through - too much for the average person. At least, that was, if you didn’t know what to look for. Fortunately for Bucky, he had more of an inkling than most. But there were only so many hours in a day that a library was open._

_“You all right?” the soft voice had startled him from his thoughts and he turned to see a woman standing behind him with a slight smile. Quickly he moved to hide what was on the screen, but she laughed and shook her head. “I’m sure that’s what the majority of people here are looking at. It’s sparked quite a few conspiracy theories already.”_

_Her name had been Alexis. She worked part-time at the library and she had been incredibly kind. She walked him through using the printer, helped him check out books on Captain America and the Howling Commandos. She’d even offered to buy him a cup of coffee._

_She’d been so kind that he felt badly about stealing her wallet and using it to procure enough cash for a new place to lay his head for a few nights and a temporary credit card that he used to buy himself supplies. He made one big-ticket purchase - a laptop and an external hard drive - before ditching the credit cards alltogether._

_From there, it had been months of laying low and moving from place to place while he gathered funds and tried to forge the connections that could get him out of the country in search of HYDRA. It was during these months that he went back to referring to himself as Bucky. While the soldier in the history books about the Second World War still felt like a near stranger to him, he needed to claim part of the identity they’d stolen from him back. Part of that began with giving himself a name._

_Eventually, once travel had been arranged for him on a cargo ship, he’d packed up the few belongings he had and mailed a package to Alexis - having gotten her address from her wallet. He included enough money to replace what he’d spent of hers as well as some very overdue library books and what he hoped was enough for their late fees (adjustments for inflation was still a thing he was figuring out)._

_Then he set off._

_The group that had taken his life from him hadn’t been taken out in one fell swoop after the events in D.C._

_There had been groups that had gone underground, as well as multiple splinter groups. With his laptop, he’d begun to make sense of the information dumped online faster than most had._

_It was then that he finally had his new mission - one that he assigned to himself: Destroy as much of their work as possible._

* * *

Bucky logged into the computer terminal at the HYDRA compound. One of the guards on the ground to his left groaned and stirred. Without glancing up from the monitor, Bucky lifted a heavy boot and knocked him back out.

Pulling out his external hard drive from the spot he’d zipped it away in his tactical belt, he quickly plugged it in and started to download what he needed while continuing to manually search the files. 

What he uncovered made his skin crawl, video files documenting experiments. Young men and women screaming in pain and pleading for mercy as they were subjected to HYDRA’s will.

A low growl escaped the back of his throat. He had incapacitated the entire room, as he usually did when sweeping a complex now. He was trying hard not to be the killing machine that they had made him. But after glimpsing the files, along with the stench of death hanging in the air from the pile of bodies in the corner, he felt his blood boil over with rage. As he left the files to finish downloading, he loaded a new clip into his gun and walked around the room, easily taking out every person who’d had a hand in the work done there.

Just as he’d finished, the computer beeped, signaling the file transfer was complete. Pocketing the drive again, he made a few entries on the terminal before turning to leave. 

He was halfway out the door when he heard the groan,

Bucky was certain he’d killed every HYDRA operative - point-blank range left little room for error. That was why the noise stopped him in his tracks. Especially when he realized it was from the pile of bodies in the corner.

He contemplated just going, telling himself that the sound was in his head. Until another soft whimper stopped him in his tracks. 

Turning, he went to the pile, shifting bodies out of the way before he found her. She was thin to the point of looking starved. Despite her pale complexion, he could make out the slight dusting of freckles across her cheekbones and nose. She had long dark hair that stuck to her skin, mingled with dirt and sweat. He could also make out the scarring and bruises that covered her limbs. 

She stirred slightly but didn’t wake. 

Another beep from the monitor told him he was running out of time. Cursing under his breath, he hoisted her up into his arms and carried her out. Leaving behind the room and navigating the corridors and stairs until he could push his way out of the complex and into the fresh air. 

He glanced down at the woman in his arms and sighed. He couldn’t bring her with him. In addition to her obvious need for medical attention, she would slow him down and the life he was living now was no place for anyone else. But when he moved to settle her down on the ground, her fingers tightened against his jacket, her eyes still closed. 

Sighing, he pried her fingers loose and set her down, shrugging out of his jacket and laying it over her. Her eyes fluttered open and she seemed to take in the sight of him with tired eyes. 

“Don’t worry, ma’am,” he muttered, Brooklyn accent creeping out and surprising him slightly. “I called in the cavalry.”

His hand moved, as if of its own accord, to brush hair away from her face when her eyes fell shut again. He straightened up and tore his gaze from her, finding it curiously difficult to walk away.

* * *

“Are you sure these are the coordinates?” Natasha asked as she touched down in Croatia. “I don’t see anything.”

“I’m certain,” replied Steve. “This is where he signaled us from.”

“You don’t know for sure that it was him, Cap,” Sam said from his seat on the quinjet.

“Every time we’ve been signaled the same way. The same encrypted code over the same server, each one leading us to a HYDRA or splinter group compound, and every time everyone on the premises is incapacitated. Who else could it be?”

“When that information dropped online, a lot of people got to work decrypting it and studying it, it could be any number of undiscovered enhanced individuals who are quicker at reading into all of those files than we are.” Natasha reasoned.

Steve shook his head. “It’s Bucky, I’m sure of it.” His eyes scanned the scene in front of them before he spotted a set of doors for the bunker. “There.”

Sam leaned forward. “Is that...is there a person there?”

“Only one way to be sure,” the redhead in the pilot’s seat nodded as she pulled her gun from its holster.

After scanning the surrounding area for heat signatures and finding no one else, they exited the quinjet and made their way to the doors and the crumpled body in front of them. They shifted the jacket that was covering her and even Natasha, who was hardened to the world more than the other two, gasped at the state the young woman’s body was in.

“Shit,” Sam muttered.

“Language,” Steve scolded before wincing as Natasha and Sam scoffed and snickered

“I’ve barely got a pulse. She’s wearing a hospital gown, how did she even get out here?” Natasha questioned. 

“Get her to the quinjet, Nat and I will do a sweep inside and round up anyone left behind,” Steve said, eying the jacket draped over her and moving to gently tug it up so it was under her chin.

When they explored the bunker, Steve drew in a sharp breath. Something about this scene was different from the other half dozen. Bucky had usually left men zip-tied and unconscious. This time they had all been murdered.

In cold blood.

There was also the pile of bodies in the corner, dressed similarly to the woman they’d found outside. He knew that this hadn’t been Bucky’s handiwork but wondered if they were failed experiments that HYDRA had discarded or if the men had panicked when their base had been discovered. All Steve knew was that in the recent weeks, following Bucky’s trail of breadcrumbs to the bases across Europe, he’d originally felt like he might have been closer to getting his friend back. But this scene felt much more like the aftermath of the Winter Soldier.

While Steve shook away the thought and worked on checking for any survivors, Natasha went to the console.

“Hey, Cap?” She called out. “I think you were right about this being Barnes.”

Steve’s head snapped up. “How do you know?”

“Well, if I saw these videos and had been through what he’d been through, I’d get pissed, too,” Natasha gestured to the screen as Steve walked over to the console. He watched over her shoulder as clips of people subjected to HYDRA’s experimentations cried out in pain. “Is that…” Natasha asked as the face of the woman they'd found appeared on the screen.

“Download all of the files, then we’ve got to move,” Steve ordered somberly.

* * *

Milena jolted awake, gasping for air. 

“Siguran si. Sve je dobro,” a voice soothed. (You are safe. All is well.)

She blinked as her eyes adjusted to the bright light and the clean room around her. Outside of the room, she could hear people chattering in Croatian. Medical jargon mostly. It looked like a hospital room. 

She glanced at the redheaded woman who smiled down kindly at her, wearing scrubs while another person - a man with sandy hair, moved around the room to glance at the equipment. 

“I speak English if that is easier,” she muttered back, shoulders still tense. When the woman looked at her questioningly, she sighed. “Your accent is off, the equipment is labeled in English, and it does not smell like a hospital.”

“I told you this was a bad idea,” came another voice. Milena’s eyes sought out the source. A tall, broad man stood in the doorway just as the chatter from outside stopped suddenly. 

_A recording,_ she mused. _Clever._

“They tried this on me, too. Didn’t work then either,” the man continued. “Natasha, Clint, want to give us a minute?” 

The other two left the room, the redhead muttering that her accent had been fine. 

“I’m sorry about that,” he said, gaining her attention again. He stayed to the edges of the room, and she realized it was for her benefit, to keep her comfortable. “My name is Steve, we didn’t want to give you too much of a shock when you woke up, but we shouldn’t have tried to deceive you.”

“Is this for more...experiments?” she asked him softly. 

His eyes went wide and his expression soft. “No!” he exclaimed. “No. We don’t do that here. We were sweeping HYDRA compounds, and we found you. You’re in New York now, we took you here for medical attention. You’re free to go once you’re medically cleared as healthy.” When she only shifted uncomfortably and eyed him with disbelief, he sighed. “What’s your name?”

She eyed him warily for a moment before answering. “Milena. Milena Kovač.”

“Well, I promise you, Milena, no one is going to experiment on you. If you want, we can help get in touch with your family and once you’re medically cleared —”

“My family is gone.”

The words hung in the air for a moment, thick and heavy. She watched as his brow furrowed and his eyes went soft. “I’m sorry.”

“Do not be,” she replied firmly. “They took all of us from our home. My mother, father, and brother...they were given freedom through death. I spent many days wishing for the same thing but could not seem to manage it.” When Steve only looked at her curiously, she shook her head. “Their experiments were not a success, I was to be cast aside and left to die as a failure of theirs. That is the last thing I remember.”

The man in front of her seemed to be searching for the right thing to say, but she was tired and not interested in talking yet. As the uneasy silence crept back around them, the door opened, and another man walked in.

“Everything okay here, Capsicle?” the older man asked.

“You are Tony Stark,” she replied, recognizing him instantly before whipping her head around to look at Steve. “And that means you are...Steve Rogers?” Steve only dipped his chin sheepishly.

“Ha! She recognized me before you, Rogers.”

“We have the news and history books in Croatia, Mr. Stark,” she informed him dryly. “In the photos from the attack on Manhattan, Captain Rogers was wearing a mask. And he never held any press conferences to announce that he was a hero.”

The words were out before she could stop them and she immediately paused, realizing that snarking at her rescuers might not be the best move.

“I like her,” a woman called out from just outside the door.

Tony leveled his gaze at her, examining her for a moment. “Me, too. What’s your name kid?”

“Tony,” Steve started, a hint of warning in his tone. “This is Milena.”

“Milena, eh? Can I call you Millie?”

“I would prefer if you did not.”

“Okay, Millie. How about we get you a change of clothes and something to eat?”

* * *

The redheaded woman from earlier had returned a few moments later, no longer dressed in scrubs, and offered her a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. “The pants may be a bit long but they were all I could find for now. They’ve already sent out for some new clothes that might fit better.”

The men left the room so that she could change, but the woman stayed and occupied herself with unplugging some of the equipment. When Milena didn’t move to change right away, she looked at her curiously.

“Captain Rogers said that you all just wanted to ensure that I was healthy after being held by HYDRA and I was free to go once I was cleared medically. But you will not leave me in a room alone.”

“HYDRA has a history of trying to experiment on people in an attempt to replicate the serum that was used on Steve. Based on the equipment and the bodies that we found at the complex, they were still trying to enhance others. The fact that you survived means that we have to be careful.”

“But they said their trials with me had been a failure. They left me to die.”

“And yet you made it out alive. Listen, I’m not saying you’re a top tier HYDRA designed weapon here to infiltrate us. I’m saying there could be side effects you won't even be aware of. We’d like you to meet with some of the medical staff we have and once we’re sure there aren’t going to be any little surprises, you will be free to go.”

Milena considered this for a moment and sighed, moving to get changed.

“I’m Natasha, by the way,” the redhead told her, turning her back to afford her some privacy.

“Milena.”

“Nice to meet you, Millie.”

* * *

Steve, Tony, the sandy-haired man from earlier who had introduced himself as Clint, and another man who’d introduced himself as Sam, all stared wide eyed at Milena. 

She was on her third plate of food, trying everything that Tony had asked to be sent up from the kitchens. He explained that while part of Stark Tower served as living quarters, entertaining space, and the team’s headquarters, hundreds of Stark Industry employees worked on the lower levels and enjoyed a fully catered cafeteria for their meal breaks. Being unsure of what she liked, he’d asked the kitchen staff to send up some of everything from the day’s menu. As it turned out, after being held captive, she liked everything on the menu.

It was Natasha who hesitantly put a hand on hers as she was reaching for another helping. “You might make yourself sick,” she warned. “There will be plenty of time to eat and plenty more where this came from.”

She sheepishly and reluctantly let go of the piece of bread in her grasp and nodded.

“Milena,” Steve started as she reached for her glass of water. “Do you know how long you were with HYDRA?”

Frowning, she fidgeted for a moment, sipping from her glass before shaking her head. “I lost track,” she admitted. “It was late October when they took us.”

“It’s February fourth now,” Clint informed her before pushing his food around with his fork.

“Five months then.” She let that information sink in for a moment. “We missed Christmas.” An uneasy silence fell over them again with sympathetic looks passed her way. She didn’t want any of it. “So this is the tower where the aliens attacked?”

Tony nodded. “We rebuilt it in record time while also helping with reparations to the city. I designed the entire thing myself.”

Milena looked around and supposed that wasn’t too hard to believe. It was modern and somehow both minimalist and flashy all at once. 

When she’d followed Natasha out of the elevator she’d been immediately in awe of the floor to ceiling windows offering a view of Manhattan. Dark hardwood and sleek furniture with metallic accents decorated the large living area with a full bar and a gourmet kitchen. The whole area was larger than the home she and her family had lived in before it was so cruelly snatched away from them - or rather, they from it. She could tell from the hallways that the space sprawled on and she questioned what any person could do with so much space.

“And you live here?”

Tony shook his head. “I occupy the top few floors, Penthouse level. This one is for these ruffians,” he jerked his head in the direction of the others at the table.

“You all live together?”

“We stay here when we’re in Manhattan. Sam is down in Washington D.C. pretty often just like I used to be. Natasha…”

“Travels for work,” the redhead supplemented.

Clint just shrugged noncommittally. “Rest my head here sometimes.”

“Of course, while you settle in, we’ll be here more consistently,” Steve added hastily causing her to look back in confusion. “You know, just until we get some doctors here to make sure you’re all right after HYDRA and get you back on your feet.”

“Is it underground?” she asked. When the others only stared blankly at her, she huffed in frustration. “Where you are going to keep me - is it an underground facility?”

“It’s down the hall,” Steve told her, speaking slowly as though he was worried there had been a breakdown in translation somewhere.

“You have cells down the hall from your kitchen?” she asked incredulously.

“Cells? What? No! I told you, we’re not HYDRA. We don’t do that. Not even when we were with SHIELD would we -”

“Except maybe for that time when SHIELD was secretly infiltrated by HYDRA,” Natasha cut in casually.

“And Fury didn’t necessarily seem like a dude that likes surprises unless it was _‘Surprise, motherfucka, I’m still alive,’_ ” Sam muttered.

“Language,” Steve immediately chided, causing Tony to _giggle_.

“And we did have a cage built for Bruce, and we were pretty jumpy after Loki,” Clint piped in.

“Guys,” Steve cut in sternly, effectively silencing the others. “The point is, we’re not going to lock you up, we’re not going to experiment on you against your will. Helen Cho, who’s a renowned geneticist, and a member of our team, Bruce Banner, they’ll come and examine you, maybe run some tests. But they’re going to inform you of what’s going on every step of the way. And you can stay in a room here, we’ve got some vacancies. We’ll give you free rein of everything on this floor but ask that you don’t leave this floor without our supervision until we know that there aren’t going to be any complications from your time with HYDRA. Does that sound fair?”

“And then, if I am deemed well by your doctor friends, I am free to go?” When Steve nodded, she responded with a slow one of her own. “That sounds fair.”

“Right,” Tony grinned, clapping his hands together. “We have a few rooms open...”

“She can take the one next to mine.”

“I thought that one was for…”

“She can take the one next to mine,” Steve insisted for a second time, his tone making it clear that he didn’t want to elaborate further. He looked at her and offered her a warm smile. “I can show you there now if you’d like?”

Leaving the others behind, Steve showed her down the hallway near the elevator. They passed several doors, all with some sort of scanner beside them. When they reached the end of the hall, Steve gestured. “That one’s mine, if you need anything. But you can stay here.” He scanned his palm and the door slid open with a soft whoosh. 

Milena poked her head inside. Like the rest of the floor, the room was sleek and minimalist. Upon first entering, there was a small sofa and, against the wall just beside the door, a flatscreen television was mounted up. There were large windows and a desk and bookshelf off to the side. Against the wall opposite the door was a large bed. Two sets of doors were to the right of the bed. 

“Bathroom and closet are through those doors.”

“It is humongous,” she muttered, looking around. She walked further inside, inspecting the room. There were a few books already on the bookshelf and on the desk were two framed photographs. One she had seen before, in history textbooks documenting the Second World War — a photo of Captain Rogers in his own time surrounded by the Howling Commandos. Steve was smiling right at the camera and the man beside him was leaning an elbow on his shoulder, head tipped back slightly in a laugh. The other photo features that same man, looking younger. It appeared to be a family photo — his mother and father and a young girl, presumably his sister, around him as he stood there dressed in his military uniform. 

As the young man in the photograph stared up at her, she sensed something familiar that she couldn’t quite place. “Who is this?”

“That’s Bucky Barnes.”

“I read about him once, I think. In school,” she turned over her shoulder and looked at Steve.

“Buck was my best friend — back before I was this,” he gestured to himself. “When I was just a kid in Brooklyn, spoiling for a fight.” He smiled, but she noticed it didn’t quite reach his eyes. 

Milena glanced at the bookshelf, old musty paperbacks with cracked spines. “Who was this room for?” she asked softly. 

Sighing, Steve rubbed the back of his neck. “During the war, Bucky fell from a train just a few days before I went under the ice. I thought he was dead. He wasn’t. He survived and HYDRA found him. They kept him for decades, brainwashed him and turned him into an assassin. He escaped them when SHIELD fell and I think he was starting to remember who he was but...he ran. And I haven’t been able to find him. I set up the room for if I did, so that he could recover from what HYDRA did to him here.”

“Why did you decide to let me have it?”

“Because you’re recovering from what they did, too. I can get this stuff out of here,” he added hastily, taking a step towards the bookcase. 

“Wait,” she said softly. “Can you leave it?” When Steve looked at her curiously, she looked back down at the photo of Bucky and his family. “I do not have anything left of my family or my life before they took me. But if he survived after all of those years and is out there somewhere, I can, too.” She ran a fingertip along the frame before nodding. “Plus, I like to read.”

Steve just nodded before clasping a hand on her shoulder. “You will be okay, I promise.” He glanced at the photos himself and sighed softly. “If you need anything just let us know. We can work on getting you some clothes. The only thing in the closet is the jacket we found you with.”

“Jacket?” she asked, brow furrowing in confusion. 

“When we found you outside, you were wearing it.”

“I was outside?” she echoed. The last thing that she remembered was being strapped to a chair and slipping in and out of consciousness, hearing one of the operatives announce her a failure and instructing another to toss her with the others. She didn’t remember and couldn’t imagine fighting her way outside or how she would have managed it or where she would have gotten a jacket. 

She crossed to the closet and opened the door. It was a massive walk-in with only a worn-looking brown leather jacket hanging inside. She stepped closer to it, running her fingers over the soft leather. “I do not remember.” 

“I assumed maybe you stole it on your way out for warmth.”

“I do not remember getting outside.”

“Maybe you’re stronger than you think,” Steve suggested. She didn’t know how to tell him that that was highly unlikely. Steve pressed on, pulling her from her thoughts. “Like I was saying, we’ll work on getting you some clothes of your own, and if you need anything you can actually just ask JARVIS.”

“Who is Jar-”

“Good afternoon, Millie,” a calm British voice filled the room, causing her to jump. “How may I be of service?”

“JARVIS is an artificial intelligence program of Tony’s. He essentially runs the tower. Security protocols, deliveries, communication throughout the tower, even controlling the thermostat and running the entertainment systems.”

“Oh,” she bit her lip as she tried to absorb this information. “Does he have to call me Millie?” she questioned.

“It was Mr. Stark’s request,” JARVIS replied evenly.

“If you want, I can talk to Tony.” Steve offered. She shook her head, glancing around the large living quarters she’d been granted. It was larger than anything she’d been used to in her life and they were being so hospitable. While part of her was still reluctant to completely trust it, she didn’t think it was polite to quarrel over a nickname. “Okay then, I’ll leave you to settle in and if you need anything, tell JARVIS and he’ll alert one of us right away. JARVIS controls the security of our rooms and, while you have your privacy, we’re going to have access in case something comes up but he’ll always alert you and ask before he lets us in.”

Milena walked back over to the bookshelf and nodded. “Thank you, Captain Rogers.”

“You can call me Steve, you know.” He offered her another kind smile before walking out the door. Sighing, Milena picked a book off of the shelf and walked to the couch, hoping something to read would stop her mind from racing with all of the questions and concerns she had.

She’d spent months with HYDRA being tormented and watching them torment the people that she loved the most. She’d dreamed of escaping at first and then towards the end, when her family was gone, just wished to be put out of her misery. Now, here in New York, under the care of Earth’s mightiest heroes, she had no idea how to process what had happened to her or what to do next.

“JARVIS?” she asked.

“Yes, Millie?”

“There’s this song. I forget the name of it…” She sang a few bars of the song her mother used to sing in the kitchen when she would cook dinner or wanted to soothe Millie and her brother to bed. “Could you play it?”

“Certainly.”

A moment later, a soft guitar played out over the sound system in her room and she closed her eyes, taking a deep breath before opening her book and trying to focus on the words on the page.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first of what I estimate will be 22 chapters (18 of which have already been written). I'm going to try to update at least once a week as I get back into the flow of writing, editing and posting.
> 
> If you like my work, please leave some feedback. If you really like it, [consider getting me a cup of coffee.](http://ko-fi.com/raggedypanda)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for your kudos and feedback. I just finished writing the entirety of this story (which wound up being 23 full chapters plus a brief epilogue) and I am already working on the sequel! This story is a labor of love for me that has lived in my head for over a year and I truly hope that you enjoy it.

A few hours after Steve left her to her own devices, Milena was thoroughly engrossed in the book she’d selected. JARVIS had asked if she would like to hear music similar to the song she’d asked for earlier, and once she agreed, proceeded to play a selection of songs for her. 

She was reaching a particularly poignant scene in her book when the volume of the music lowered and JARVIS spoke. “Excuse me, Miss, but Agent Romanov is outside of your door requesting entrance.”

Chewing on her lip, she marked her page by gently folding down the corner, making a note that she would have to find an actual bookmark. “Okay.”

The door slid open and the redhead stepped inside. She was carrying three large shopping bags. 

“Hi. I brought you some clothes. We weren’t sure what you’d want, so there’s a mix in there.”

“How did you know what size to get?”

“JARVIS scanned you for your measurements.”

Milena looked up at the ceiling and lifted an eyebrow. “JARVIS, you could have at least asked me on a date first,” she said sarcastically. 

“Apologies, Miss.”

Natasha smiled softly at her. “Good to see you’ve got your sense of humor.” She walked further into the room and placed the bags down at the foot of the bed. “Try it on whenever you want, anything you don’t like, we’ll send back. And if you need anything specific, just tell JARVIS or one of us. There are also some books in that bag there.” She paused for a moment before gesturing to the sofa. “Can I sit?”

Milena nodded and made room for her.

“I was hoping to ask you a few questions. About HYDRA.”

Milena felt her stomach churn but nodded.

“Do you have any idea why they might have chosen you and your family?”

Frowning, she looked away but nodded again. “My family was...different. My mother could know what you were thinking without you saying it.”

“She was telepathic?” Natasha asked with surprise. “Was your father, too?”

“No. He could...he could touch a person once and change his appearance at will to mirror theirs.”

“And you said that you had a brother?”

“Luka. When he was a very little boy, we just thought that he was fast. Superhumanly so.” Milena looked down. “But by his sixth birthday, he looked as though he were already ten years old. We began to suspect that instead of simply moving fast, he manipulated the time around him -- slowing everything down unbeknownst to us but aging in those moments that he stretched into hours for himself. By his fourteenth birthday, he looked so much older than me. We had pulled him out of school by that time and tried to keep him inside so that no one would become suspicious.”

“But people did.”

“It was my fault.”

“I’m sure that it wasn’t,” Natasha said gently. “What about you, Millie? What can you do?”

“Nothing,” she replied firmly. “I never had any sort of...enhancement, is what HYDRA called it. They tried to find it but never could. I am not special.”

“Because you don’t have super strength or X-ray vision?” the other woman countered. “Neither do I. I worked hard to become the person I am - not always under the best circumstances either. It took a lot for you to survive what you went through and come out in one piece. That’s pretty special.”

Milena considered this for a moment and nodded.

“Milena,” Natasha said after a moment. “I wanted to let you know that Dr. Cho and Bruce will be here the day after tomorrow to meet with you. They’re going to want to take blood samples and examine you.” When she visibly flinched at the thought, Natasha dipped her chin to force the other woman to look her in the eyes. “This is just so we can make sure there aren't any side effects to what HYDRA did to you and to make sure you’re recovering well.”

“But now that you know about my family…”

“It will help Helen if she knows that something could come up, maybe a recessive gene from one of your parents. But we’re not going to experiment on you, we’re not going to hold you here against your will, and no one here will hurt you. They’re going to tell you what they’re doing, what they’re looking for, and what they find every step of the way.”

Milena took a deep breath before nodding. Despite her reluctance to believe her, she’d been given no reason to doubt her so far. “All right.”

“Dinner is in a couple of hours, JARVIS will let you know when to come down to the kitchen,” Natasha told her, patting her knee gently before standing to leave the room.

“Thank you,” Milena said gently.

“No problem.”

* * *

That night, Milena slept fitfully. The bed in her room was spacious and comfortable, but hard to adjust to. Even when she did drift off, she would wake with a jolt, covered in sweat and gasping for air. JARVIS had asked if she wanted him to alert one of the others to her distress, She’d declined and decided to read until she eventually passed out from exhaustion for a couple of blissfully dreamless hours.

She woke up at around dawn, sunlight streaming through the large windows. The first thing she did was take another long hot shower. She knew that when she’d been rescued that actual nurses -- thankfully not just Natasha and Clint in scrubs -- had helped to clean, change her, and assess any damage that would have needed immediate attention, but a proper shower was a luxury she hadn’t been afforded in months.

After her fingers pruned, she finally pried herself away from the warm water. With a towel wrapped around her, she looked in the bathroom mirror and frowned. She had always been on the smaller side but her frame had once been athletic and slim, now she looked positively malnourished and bony. 

Scowling, she brushed knots from her hair and moved to get dressed. She’d tried on the clothes Natasha had delivered and found that they all did, in fact, fit. She pulled on a pair of denim jeans and a soft cotton t-shirt and then puttered around her room for a while, storing the rest of her clothes in the closet.

“Miss, Mr. Barton is outside of your door requesting entrance.”

“Let him in.”

The door whooshed open and she poked her head out of her closet. Clint stood there, dressed in a slouchy grey t-shirt and some sweatpants. He was holding a tray with food.

“I’d asked JARVIS to let me know when you were up and he told me you’d been up for a couple of hours. I thought you might want some breakfast.” He seemed to wait in the doorway for permission to enter, and when she nodded, he placed the tray down on the coffee table in front of the sofa. “I wasn’t sure how you liked your coffee, so I brought cream and sugar on the side. In fact, I wasn’t sure if you liked coffee, so I also brought orange juice and water.”

Milena smiled as he explained and walked from the closet over to the sofa. She examined the tray and saw that he’d arranged two sunny side up eggs and bacon into a smiley face on the plate along with a side of toast and some fresh berries and orange slices.

“Thank you, this is very kind.”

He waited for her to sit down and pick up her fork before he sat down. “Are you not going to have something?” she asked him curiously.

Clint just reached for the second mug of coffee that was on the tray and took a sip.

They sat in easy silence as she ate and they both sipped at their coffee.

“How old are your children?” she asked him, causing him to startle and tense.

“What makes you think that I have children?”

“This is the plate a parent makes for their child.” she gestured to the now dismantled smiley face as she used a piece of toast to soak up some of the egg yolk. “For the first day of school, or to soothe them after a night of bad dreams.”

“Only Natasha knows.”

Milena looked at him. “I am not going to tell anyone.”

Clint relaxed and told her about Cooper and Lila and his wife, Laura, who was expecting a third child in the summer. She listened contently as he told her stories about the children and their little quirks and the favorite games they liked to play. The stories reminded her of her own childhood, playing with her brother, and she felt a sort of sadness creep in and squeeze at her chest.

“How old are you?” Clint asked her curiously.

“Twenty-two,” she replied.

“Listen, Nat and I were talking last night and we were thinking -- you could be staying here for a little while, and even after you leave, we’ll make sure you can get in touch with us. But we wanted to maybe train you a bit, standard self-defense, maybe some target practice. We don’t think you’ll need it, but we thought it might even just give you peace of mind.”

Milena considered this offer for a moment, taking another bite of toast. “I will think about it. Thank you, Agent Barton.”

“Clint,” he corrected her and smiled, taking another sip of his coffee.

* * *

Later that day, before lunch, JARVIS announced that her presence was requested in the common area. She made her way down to find Steve standing with a strange man wearing horn-rimmed glasses, he introduced himself as a psychologist. They asked Milena to sit down with him and he began to ask her questions about how she was feeling and what had happened to her. 

She’d responded with one-worded replies for about fifteen minutes before Steve cut the session short and allowed her to join Clint in the kitchen where he was preparing lunch. The expert marksman gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder and silently guided her to help him assemble sandwiches for the two of them, Steve, Sam, and Natasha. He explained that Tony had accompanied Pepper Potts to Washington D.C. for the day for a meeting for Stark Industries.

She ate her lunch wordlessly.

“Mil-”

“I do not need to speak to a psychologist. I have already agreed to speak to your two doctor friends. I did not agree to talk to any more. I have seen enough doctors to last me a lifetime,” she spat out before rising to stand from the table, leaving a half-eaten sandwich on her plate. No one stopped her as she marched back to her room.

* * *

About an hour after she’d abruptly left the table, JARVIS alerted her to Sam’s presence outside of her door. She let him in and stared at him expectantly as he stood in the doorway. “I come bearing gifts,” he said, holding up two styrofoam containers and holding one out to her.

Hesitating for a second, she walked over to take the container and peer inside. 

“Rozata?”

“I looked up some restaurants that served Croatian food, this place had good reviews. I got some to try myself.”

She leveled her gaze at him before turning to sit down on the sofa. He waited a beat before joining her and offering her a spoon. She immediately dove into the custard dessert. When she realized Sam was watching her expectantly and hadn’t opened his container yet, she smiled, “My mother used to make rozata on special occasions. This reminds me of hers.”

Sam seemed pleased by this and took a bite from his own dessert as well.

“Cap didn’t mean any harm by bringing that guy in,” he told her after a few moments of uneasy silence.

“I know. But he promised to be forthcoming with me and I was unprepared for that man.”

Sam nodded, taking another bite. He explained how he’d come to know and help Steve and Natasha not too long ago and that in addition to his time occasionally assisting Captain America and with the military, he worked with Veterans leading a support group for those having trouble readjusting.

“I can’t imagine what you went through or what you’re going through now. I’m not going to force you to tell me how it feels. But adjusting to life after something traumatic? I understand that. Actually, everyone who works with Steve might. And if you ever want to talk, I’m here.”

Sam then steered the conversation away from somber topics, he asked her about what sort of music she liked and Sam’s eyes sparkled as he jotted down some of the artists she listed that he’d never heard of. He rattled off a few suggestions of his own and she asked JARVIS to take note and play some of it later for her.

The more they talked about trivial things, the more she began to occasionally talk about her family. The way her mother had loved singing in the kitchen while she cooked for the family, the way that her father changed his voice dramatically when he read stories to her as a child.

After over an hour of storytelling, she burst into tears when she realized she couldn’t remember what her brother’s laugh sounded like anymore. She remembered that it had been her favorite sound when he was still young, having not aged past her yet. She remembered feeling like such a proud older sister any time she had caused him to erupt into a fit of giggles. Any memory she tried to conjure of the actual sound seemed cold and empty in her brain. 

Before she knew it, Sam’s arm was around her as he rubbed her back soothingly. He sat there with her until her tears subsided and remained there even when she wordlessly reached for her book and read. He even walked to the bookshelf to pick up one of his own to read before returning to her side.

* * *

That night, Milena had trouble falling asleep again and realized why. She eventually dragged her pillow and blanket off of the bed and onto the floor where she curled up and tried to force herself to sleep.

She dreamt that she was back in HYDRA’s clutches with her family, watching her parents and brothers die with a look of betrayal in their eyes as if she were the one killing them. She dreamt of being surrounded by corpses, engulfed by pale skin and the smell of decomposing flesh. She dreamt of concerned blue eyes and a cold hand trying to pull her free but every time she reached for it, she slipped further out of the stranger’s grasp.

She woke up with tears in her eyes and a hoarse scream on her lips.

“Millie!” Steve exclaimed, his hands on her shoulders. He’d been trying to shake her awake and the door to her room was open. “You’re okay, you’re safe.”

She didn’t notice when the others, alerted to her distress by either JARVIS or her screams, appeared in the doorway.

She let out a shuddering gasp and shook her head. “I watched them die,” she told him sadly, fresh tears pooling in her eyes. “HYDRA wanted to see if I was like them. When their first tests failed, they tried to add stressors to trigger a display of power. They tortured and killed my family in front of me to see if I would react.”

Steve absorbed this information and his eyes softened, he immediately pulled her into a hug and she sobbed against his shoulder.

“I tried so hard to be strong or special. I could not save them. They died because of me.”

“No,” Steve told her firmly, rubbing small circles on her back in an attempt to comfort her. “HYDRA did that. Not you. Don’t blame yourself for the actions of evil, delusional men.”

After a few moments, when her shuddering and sobs faded, he looked at her. “What are you doing sleeping on the floor?”

“The bed is too soft,” she whispered. “I spent months sleeping on a cot or concrete depending on where they kept me. It is too soft.”

Steve sighed gently, understanding and sadness in his eyes. “Maybe we can get you a firmer mattress.”

“I will be fine,” she told him, though she already knew it sounded like she was trying to convince herself even more than him. 

They sat there for another few moments before Milena realized how uncomfortable Steve must have been, crouched down on the floor. She wiped her eyes and pulled back a bit. Before she knew it, Natasha was helping her to her feet and Clint was pushing a hot mug of tea into her grasp. She felt embarrassed and guilty for waking them up and began to apologize before Sam spoke up.

“I was in my room watching the Fast and the Furious, anyone want to watch in the living room? One of the cable channels is marathoning all of them.”

Everyone murmured their assent and Milena walked out of her room with them. 

About thirty minutes into the movie, after she finished her tea, she curled up into the corner of the sectional. “This movie is not very good.”

“Yes,” Sam agreed as he watched with rapt attention.

“And yet somehow engrossing.”

“Wait until the fourth one. The Rock is in the fourth one.”

No one made it to the fourth film in the franchise though. All of them had fallen asleep scattered about the sofa in the middle of the second one.

The next morning, Clint asked her to keep him company in the kitchen while he made coffee for the others. 

Steve and Sam had both woken up at the first sign of sunlight and gone for a run. Natasha had eventually gone back to her room to enjoy the comfort of her own bed. Clint had dropped a blanket over Milena and called Laura and the kids. He was puttering around the common area when she woke. Now, with Natasha awake and Steve and Sam back from their run and showered, everyone was demanding coffee.

She leaned against the counter and watched him. 

“I’m going to be gone for a few days to deal with some personal stuff,” he told her. When she looked at him curiously, he smiled. “Laura’s got an appointment for the baby, I just want to be there for it.”

She smiled softly and nodded, tilting her head. “Why are you telling me?”

“Because I didn’t want to just disappear on you. I’d like to think that you’re starting to trust us -- maybe even realize you can count on us. And it’s not nice for the people you count on to just disappear for days at a time with no explanation. I’ll be here today for your meetings with Dr. Cho and Banner, and if you need to talk to me about anything, tell Nat. She knows how to get in touch with me when I’m gone.”

“I do not wish to disturb you when you are with your family.”

He gave her a look and nudged her. “Don’t worry about it, kid.” When she nodded, he gave her a warm smile that reminded her of her father’s. It hurt her heart but she couldn’t help but think he must also be a very good father to his own children.

Clint went about making the coffee as the elevator chimed. Tony stepped out, spreading his arms out wide in a grandiose gesture. “Honeys, I’m home!” he exclaimed. 

Sam, Steve, and Natasha grumbled their responses as he walked to the kitchen. 

“Welcome back, Mr. Stark.”

“Call me Tony, Millie. Settling in well?” She shrugged and he poured himself a cup of coffee. “Bruce’ll be here soon, he was finishing a couple of projects with the R&D boys in the California office. Helen’s flight gets in after lunch. Speaking of lunch, we should order in. Pizza? Chinese? Shawarma?”

“Stark, it’s 9:30 in the morning,” Steve pointed out, walking over to get himself some coffee. 

“And you, Wilson, and Bruce eat more combined than a professional football team and I personally watched this one prepare for a career as a competitive eater the other day,” he jerked his head in Milena’s direction. “Got to give the kitchens time to prepare.”

“Pizza,” Sam voted, dropping onto one of the stools against the kitchen island.

“Pizza party it is. Also, next time you guys have a late-night movie marathon sleepover, you could wait until I’m here and invite me.” He pretended to pout.

“How did yo-”

“Before I got on the plane back, I asked JARVIS how everyone was. He gave me a status update.”

“It was my fault,” Milena confessed. “I had a difficult night and woke the others up. I am sorry.”

Tony regarded her for a moment, the playful pout on his face dropping and an uncharacteristically sincere one replacing it. “Don’t sweat it, kid. I know how rough nights go.” He patted her shoulder before holding out a box. “I brought you a present.”

Milena looked at him curiously before opening the box and staring at its contents. “A smartphone?”

“A StarkPhone,” he corrected. “It has all of our contacts in there,” When she just looked at him curiously, he sighed. “Listen, no matter what happens with your appointments today -- if you find out you can go or that you have to stay for a while, having a way to get in touch with us at all times is a good thing. This is a direct line to the Avengers, kid.” Taking the phone from her, he unlocked it and scrolled through to show her some icons. “This right here is what you press if you’re ever in trouble and not at the tower. It’ll work like a panic button, it will alert whichever of us is closest to you. This one here will patch you into JARVIS if you need anything -- information, directions, a place to stay,” he nodded. “And this one is the game with the birds.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to find a place that can get us a dozen pizzas by noon,” he quipped, the teasing tone back in his voice.

* * *

Bruce Banner wasn’t at all what she expected.

After months with HYDRA’s “doctors,” she had a rather unfavorable opinion of them. But Bruce had shuffled into the tower, glasses slightly askew as he dropped his bags to the side of the elevator. The others greeted him warmly and he dipped his head and murmured his hellos. He was immediately swept up in a conversation with Natasha, during which he fidgeted quite a bit.

He did not seem anything like the confident, egotistical men who’d poked and prodded her for months, reacting with glee at any kind of reaction they could elicit (mostly from pain).

Once the pizza arrived and they all gathered around the kitchen and Steve took the opportunity to introduce them. Bruce greeted her with a warm and sympathetic smile and kind eyes. Still, he seemed to sense her hesitance around him and kept his distance for the rest of the meal. When JARVIS announced Helen Cho’s arrival, he made his way down to the lab to get things ready.

Clint and Steve both sat with Milena as she finished her third slice of pizza before taking her to the elevator and escorting her down.

Helen was still preparing in the other room when she hoisted herself onto an examination table. Steve and Clint both moved towards the door to go and Bruce stepped towards her -- she involuntarily stiffened. “Steve, Clint, could you stay?” he asked with a sigh before turning to Milena. “Maybe that’ll make you feel better...if they're here. But I promise you, I’m not going to, you know, freak out.”

“Why would I care about you freaking out?” Milena asked him curiously.

“Isn’t that why you’re so jumpy around me? Because of the other guy.” When she only looked at him blankly, he turned to Steve for guidance.

“I think this is more that Milena doesn’t like doctors.”

Bruce’s eyes widened in realization before he held up a finger, silently asking them to give him a moment. He stepped into the other room and through the glass window in the door, Milena could see him talking with Dr. Cho. She watched them shuffle around, remove their white lab coats, and enter the room.

“Hi, Millie. I’m Bruce and this is Helen,” he told her gently. “The first thing I want to say is that I’m sorry for what happened to you.”

Understanding what he was trying to do by removing his crisp white coat, using first names, and talking gently to her, Milena couldn’t help but appreciate it. She nodded at him.

“The men who hurt you had no right to call themselves doctors,” Helen added. “We’re going to walk you through everything we do and explain why we’re doing it. If you have any questions or if you’re uncomfortable, let us know and we’ll stop and either give you a minute or find another way to do things. You just have to communicate with us.”

“I can do that,” Milena assured them, the churning feeling in her stomach lessening.

“Great, now we do have to take some blood samples. Bruce is going to ask you some questions about what you remember happening to you, which I know might be difficult to answer but do your best. Captain Rogers informed me that members of your family were enhanced, I also will need to ask you questions about that -- it’s just so I can understand anything that might come up when I look at your DNA from the samples. Is that okay?” When Milena nodded, Helen offered her a warm reassuring smile. “I’m also going to take some scans to make sure you don’t have any injuries and do a routine physical exam just to make sure you’re as healthy as can be. During that time, Captain Rogers, Clint, and Bruce can step out to give you some more privacy, if you’d like.”

“Okay,” Milena nodded, taking a deep breath to steady her heartbeat. “I can do this.” She looked over her shoulder at Steve and Clint who smiled reassuringly at her.

* * *

Helen completed her physical and allowed Milena to dress again. The older woman had been extremely communicative during the exam, warning her before every touch and test. It put Millie at ease. Helen then retreated to the other room with the blood samples they’d taken to start working on them along with the scans that she wanted to review.

Bruce, Clint, and Steve returned with Bruce dragging a stool in front of the exam table and sitting on it.

She and Bruce had already talked about her treatment under HYDRA. She’d described, in detail, the testing they did to try to provoke any sort of enhanced reaction from her and when that failed, how they’d strapped her down along with countless others and injected them. Milena told them how it had poisoned some immediately but had only made her feel sick. The HYDRA operative in charge would then pit them against each other, promising to stop torturing whomever fought with the others. She’d never caved or lifted a hand against anyone else there but the same couldn’t be said for the others. It quickly became clear that they’d been lied to, and the ones who’d displayed any act of aggression were carried off to undergo what the men there had called “more rigorous treatment.”

At some point in her storytelling, Steve had gripped the edge of a counter so hard, he damaged it and Clint had just emitted a sound akin to a growl.

Bruce had stayed calm, his eyes sympathetic and patient as he listened.

Bruce pulled out a tablet and began tapping on it. Immediately, images of some of her scans were projected into holographic images. “Now, we can see some signs of healing fractures and bone breaks, Helen made a note about some old bruising, but you’re well on your way to recovering from those. You’re a little underweight and the others tell me you’ve been having trouble with sleep. I’m going to recommend you talk to a therapist to help you cope with what happened and readjust and I’d also like to repeat some of these scans in a couple of months just to make sure you’re still progressing well. But, short of Helen and I finding something massively wrong in the samples we took, I think you’ll be able to go so long as you promise to come back and check in with us for future appointments.”

Millie looked at him, surprised.

“Millie, you’re incredibly strong to have survived all of that,” he told her gently.

“I wish you would all stop calling me strong,” she said, barely above a whisper. “I was not strong, I wanted to give up. Towards the end, I had given up.”

“We all get low,” Bruce told her, tentatively reaching out and putting his hand over hers. He seemed to hesitate for a moment before looking past her up at Steve.

“We haven’t told her,” Steve admitted.

Reaching for the tablet again, Bruce pulled up some footage from the attack on New York and projected it in the same way he had with her scans. Milena watched as the footage centered on the Hulk leaping between buildings, roaring as he grabbed one of the Chitauri fighters and tossed it aside like a piece of litter.

“That’s me,” Bruce said gently, almost chuckling at her incredulous expression. “A long time ago, I was tasked to try to recreate the serum that was used on Steve. It failed and in the process, I was exposed to an extremely high does of gamma radiation. It created the Hulk.”

Bruce explained the way he’d been horrified at what he’d been turned into at first, how he ran and secluded himself. How at one point, he’d gotten so low he’d wanted to end it all but the Hulk hadn’t let him. 

“I spent a long time trying to separate that part of me instead of working to understand the balance and control it.”

“What changed?” she asked softly.

“I found the team. Made me want to try fighting instead of running.”

Milena considered this for a moment before Bruce stood up. “Come on, you just gave a considerable amount of blood. Let’s find you some orange juice or something.”

* * *

Bruce spent the next hour or so with Milena, Steve, and Clint in the kitchen. They fell into easy conversation about little things, the men keeping her entertained with stories of their adventures together and training exercises gone awry.

“And that’s why Sam won’t go in for target practice at the same time as Natasha anymore,” Clint explained, laughing so hard that he had tears in his eyes. 

“I know angry, but I’ve never seen anyone as angry as her that day,” Bruce added, a hint of wonderment in his voice.

“She got her revenge though,” Steve pointed out. Despite the fact that he didn’t elaborate, the grimace and pity on the faces of the other two men informed her that revenge had been sweet and swift. She couldn’t help but laugh.

The four of them were so engrossed in conversation that they didn’t even notice the elevator doors sliding open until its two occupants were already standing in front of them.

“Doc, I don’t understand, you’re doubting  _ my _ equipment?” Tony almost whined.

“What I’m saying is you’re not a fully equipped genetics laboratory and I’ve never seen anything like this before in my life,” Helen Cho replied, the frustration in her voice making it clear that she’d repeated this several times between the med bay and the kitchen.

She hadn’t realized that she’d tensed up until Steve and Clint both appeared closer, flanking her on either side in an almost protective manner.

“What’s going on, Dr. Cho?” Steve asked, using a voice that Milena had come to think of as his Captain America voice -- firm and authoritative.

“Milena’s initial test results are...unique.”

“Did HYDRA do something to me?”

“Well, what’s the most unique is how your body is reacting to what they did. I’ve studied individuals who have been enhanced since birth, I’ve studied the children of those individuals, I’ve studied people like Captain Rogers, who’s genetic code was augmented by an outside force such as a serum and this is different.” Bruce went about fixing up a mug of tea for Helen as she spoke. “Milena, you’re absolutely certain that you didn’t display any sign of an ability similar to the rest of your family?”

When she nodded in the affirmative, Helen’s brow furrowed.

“In instances where that happens, usually only one of the parents has a mutated gene, therefore their offspring inherits a recessive gene from them, explaining the lack of ability. Both of your parents possessed a mutation and, based on my initial findings, you carry all of the markers for the same. I would say that it might just be dormant, though I want to run more tests back at my lab with the samples I took to see if something else is causing a complication.”

“You are telling me that I am like the rest of my family?” Milena asked incredulously. Surely after over 20 years, if she was special, it would have presented itself.

“As I said, the markers are all there. As for your time with HYDRA, that’s where it gets more confusing.” She gestured to Tony who handed her a tablet and pulled up an image.

“Looks like modern art,” Clint quipped.

“Bruce, take a look,” Helen gestured to the man who was pushing a mug of tea in her direction.

Fiddling with his glasses, Bruce narrowed his gaze. “It looks like a serum similar to the one used on Steve or the one that I tried to develop was introduced to Millie's system but...huh.” He trailed off before his lips began moving, muttering to himself.

“Right?” Helen exclaimed, a level of confusion and wonder in her voice.

“Can someone maybe talk to us without sounding like a geneticist?” Clint urged.

“The serum hasn’t been absorbed to facilitate change, but it also isn’t being metabolized out of your system.” He brought his face closer to the images. “It’s like you have cells that are binding themselves around the compound...this is…fascinating.”

Milena fidgeted a bit and Clint immediately sensed his discomfort and cleared his throat, pulling Bruce’s focus to the rest of them. He looked at her apologetically. 

“Is it dangerous?” she asked. “Is something wrong with me?”

“Of course not,” Steve told her gently, though his eyes betrayed him.

“As far as I can tell, nothing about this is dangerous but I’d like to take the samples back to my lab in Seoul and see about looking further into it with my equipment.”

“And what does that mean for me?” 

Helen and Bruce looked at each other for a few seconds before Bruce turned back to face her. “Helen is right, this doesn’t appear to be dangerous. We’d ask that you stay in New York so it would be easier to follow up for a while, but so long as you heal up and gain a bit of weight back, you’re not a danger to anyone else or to yourself. You can do what you’d like.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you like my work, please leave some feedback. If you really like it, [consider getting me a cup of coffee.](http://ko-fi.com/raggedypanda)


	3. Chapter 3

“Will you be able to return the clothes you got for me?” 

“Hmm?” Natasha asked, she was sitting on the sofa in Clint’s room cleaning a gun. Helen, Bruce, and Tony had gone back to the lab, Steve took Sam to run an errand and said they would pick up some takeout for dinner. Clint went to pack for his trip home and Milena followed.

“The clothes, all of the clothes you bought for me. Will you be able to return them?”

“Don’t you need clothes?” Clint asked as he unzipped an empty duffle bag and tossed it onto his bed.

“I guess, it’s just so much and I have no way to repay you.”

“It’s yours,” Natasha told her simply, not taking her eyes off of the task at hand.

“I’ll find a way to pay you back, once I figure out a way to make money and -”

“Where are you going to go?”

Clint’s question hung in the air for a moment and Milena realized she had no idea where she was going to go. Helen had mentioned her staying close by, but even if she had the free rein to go anywhere she wanted her family was gone, her home - she recalled - had been torn apart the night that HYDRA came for them. Besides, returning to her home after months of being away would only raise questions about where they’d been and someone must have told HYDRA about her family to begin with. 

She had nowhere.

“Hey, kid, I’m sorry.” Clint’s arm was suddenly around her and she realized she’d been crying. 

“You don’t have to make any decisions yet. Bruce is around for a while longer and I’m sure he wants to spend time going over results with you as Helen gets them in.” Natasha told her with a nod. “And we’re not going to just kick you out and leave you on her own. You have my word.”

Once she settled down a bit, Clint went back to packing. “Wait until I get back to make a decision about leaving,” he told her. “I’ll help you figure it out if you need me to.” When she looked at him curiously, he just shrugged a shoulder as he tossed some clothes into his bag. “That’s what friends are for, right?”

* * *

The next morning, Clint had already left to go see his family. Steve and Sam were on another one of their early morning runs, and Natasha had disappeared off to God only knew where. Milena shuffled into the kitchen and decided that she would make a pot of coffee for when everyone returned, measuring it out the way Clint had shown her.

Only days ago, she had been a captive. An experiment. She had lost everything she had ever loved and was only wishing for it to be over. Now, she found herself surrounded by the Avengers, all of them showing her kindness and trying to make sure that she was healthy and happy and felt safe. 

She had spent such a long time hoping for freedom but thinking it pointless, and even upon arriving at the Tower, all she wanted was permission to leave and try to reassemble her life. But the pieces of the life she’d once led were gone and now, suddenly, the idea of leaving behind the people who had provided her with her first inkling of safety and home was terrifying.

“Is that coffee?”

She jumped when Tony’s voice pulled her out of her thoughts. 

“Mr. Sta- Tony,” she amended quickly, nodding at him in greeting. “Clint showed me how to brew it strong the way you all seem to like. Help yourself.”

Tony poured himself a mug of coffee and took a sip before turning to her. “Come with me, Millie.”

Before she could respond, he was on his way to the elevator and she had to almost run to catch up with him as the doors slid open.

“I’ve been thinking,” he started as he pressed a button for a floor she’d never been to. “Barton and Romanov seem adamant that you be trained in self-defense, Banner and Wilson want to make sure that you have someone to talk to about what you’ve been through. Rogers wants to make sure you’re completely safe from HYDRA.” The elevator came to a stop and he put his arm out as the doors opened again, allowing her to step out first, before beckoning her to follow him down a hallway and into an office. “But I realized none of us have really asked you what it is that you want.”

She heard someone clear her throat softly and turned to see a tall, beautiful woman with strawberry blonde hair dressed in a pencil skirt and matching blazer.

“Okay, I was talking about you over dinner last night and Pepper realized none of us have really asked you what it is that you want,” he amended. 

“Pepper Potts,” the tall woman introduced herself with a warm smile.

Milena looked around the office, like the rest of Stark Tower, it was sleek and modern in its design, but it had touches that made it feel warmer. Photographs on the desk, a plush rug off to the side in a seating area with a linen white sofa and chairs around a glass oval coffee table. There were flowers out on the table, more photos and art hung on the walls. Pepper had certainly made her office feel inviting.

The woman gestured for her to take a seat on the sofa and joined her after pressing a button on her phone and requesting some tea be brought in.

“Tony told me a bit about what happened to you and I’m very sorry for your loss,” Pepper told her, settling down into one of the accent chairs. “He also told me that Dr. Cho and Dr. Banner have requested you stay in the area while they review your test results. Have you thought at all about how you might spend your time here?”

Milena bit her lip. That very question had kept her up most of the night. “I do not really know,” she admitted softly. “I know I would need to find employment, but I do not have any kind of visa, obviously. And much of the time before I was taken was spent helping my family, caring for them. I would work at a restaurant in town sometimes, picking up shifts to make enough money to help with the bills and expenses. I would tutor my brother once we could not risk sending him to school anymore.”

“Before you had to take on responsibilities with your family, what did you want to do?”

“In secondary school, I focused on economics and engineering. I was going to go to university to study the same things.”

Tony’s eyes lit up. “Engineering?”

Pepper paused as someone brought in a tray with tea. She quietly poured two cups and handed one to Milena. “Milena, Tony might be in need of a lab assistant,” she said after a moment. “The R&D team has their own projects and Tony is always tinkering around on his own and sometimes he can...get off track.”

“I’m a free spirit,” Tony insisted.

“If someone were willing to lend him a hand, maybe keep some more detailed records of things he works on for the company, they’d be able to learn from him, work here at the Tower, and maybe we could work out a way for them to continue their education. Do you know anyone who might be interested?”

Milena blinked. “Are you offering me a job?”

Pepper smiled warmly. “Of course, anyone working as Tony’s lab assistant would have to be able to accommodate his odd work schedule, I would almost think it might be better to have them reside in the Tower.” The older woman watched a bright smile spread across Milena’s features. “Think about it today, sleep on it, and then come see me tomorrow for lunch and let me know what you decide.”

Smiling gratefully at her, Milena nodded. The three of them continued to chat for a while and Tony, now aware of her previous academic interests, inundated her with questions about her studies and opinions.

Soon enough though, Pepper had to leave for a meeting and so Tony saw her back to the elevator. 

“You don’t need to accept the job to stay here. This isn’t a way of asking you to earn your keep,” Tony said as they waited. “I’d hoped Pepper might find an incentive for you to stay. And I have to admit that I wouldn’t mind some help in the lab. Bruce isn’t here all the time.”

She offered him a small smile and nodded. “Let me just take the day to think about it,” she requested.

* * *

Milena spent the rest of the day evaluating her options. She’d popped in on Sam while he made breakfast in the kitchen.

“Hey Millie,” he greeted her, offering her a slice of bacon.

“I have been thinking about what you said.” When Sam just looked at her and lifted his eyebrows, she pressed on. “About having someone to talk to. If I...stayed here for a while. I do not wish to speak to a psychologist, but…”

Sam put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it comfortingly. “You can talk to me any time. Any of us, really. Every now and then I go back to Washington D.C. to help out with the support group I run down there, but you can always call me. And I know that Banner wants to help, too. You don’t have to talk to anyone that you aren’t comfortable with, but you can talk to us anytime. I mean it.” 

After talking to Sam, she waited for Natasha to come back from the training rooms. She practically jumped up from the couch when the redhead stepped off of the elevator, looking slightly flushed and lugging along her gym bag.

“Clint said you two wanted to train me in self-defense,” she started immediately. Natasha blinked a few times, clearly having not been prepared for Milena to pop up right in front of her after her workout.

“Yeah, we thought it might make you feel a little safer.”

“I have considered it and I would appreciate it,” she said firmly. 

Natasha smiled at her and nodded. “When Clint gets back, we can set up a schedule and start.” After that, she excused herself to shower and pulled her phone out to tap out a quick text message to Clint. _I think she’s going to stay._

* * *

It took Milena a while to work up the nerve to initiate the last conversation that she wanted to have before she made her decision about staying. She stood out in the hallway outside of Steve’s room for a while, occasionally pacing back and forth. After about five minutes, the door to his room whooshed open.

“Milena?” he asked, looking at her curiously. “JARVIS said you were out here and that you ‘seemed distressed.’ Are you all right?”

“I wanted to talk to you if you had a moment.”

He nodded, concern flickering in his blue eyes before he stepped aside and let her in.

“Tony and Pepper have offered me a job that would allow me to stay here.”

Steve didn’t seem surprised by this news and just smiled at her. “You were always going to be allowed to stay here.” She knew that he was telling the truth, not just because everyone else had already assured her that she didn’t need to earn her stay and that -- even after only knowing her for a short time -- seemed to care about her well being. They were never going to force her out on her own.

“I know that my room -- it was meant for Sergeant Barnes.”

Steve nodded at her. “Milena, I don’t know if or when I’m going to find Bucky. And even if he showed up tomorrow, there’s plenty of space. I wouldn’t just kick you out so he could take the room.”

“It is more than that.” When he only looked at her in confusion, she sighed. “You said that HYDRA took him a long time ago and turned him into…” trailing off for a moment, she shook her head. “I am not Sergeant Barnes.”

“I know that,” he told her immediately.

“I am worried that you think that by saving me and taking care of me, you will no longer feel the loss of your friend because our situations are similar. Sam and I have talked about my losing my family and how people replace those losses. I do not want you to put so much into helping me and be disappointed if your own ache does not subside.”

He looked at her for a moment and sighed. “Milena, HYDRA did more than take my friend from me. They took my whole world from me. If it hadn’t been for them, I would have lived out the rest of my days back then. For a long time, I thought it was worth it because they were gone. And then to find out that they survived, that they had Bucky, and were hurting more innocent people like you. I wouldn’t have lost…” Instead of finishing his sentence, he shook his head. “I don’t want to help you to use you as a surrogate for Bucky. I want to help you. After all, I know what it’s like to have everything stripped away by them and not be sure where to turn -- because I want to make sure they’re gone before you go out on your own -- if that’s what you decide to do. I owe it to the world to get rid of HYDRA for good.” Rubbing the back of his neck, he looked her in the eyes.

“It is not solely your responsibility Capt -- Steve,” she told him. “What they did, what they do -- it is the actions of madmen. And even if they are eradicated, there will always be madmen in the world.”

"Cut off one head and two will take their place," Steve muttered sullenly.

Frowning, she reached out, placing her hand on his arm. “I would take the heart of one good man over the head of two evil ones. Luckily, I have met an entire team of good hearts.” She paused. “I will stay -- if only to continue reminding you of that.”

When he offered her a smile, she couldn’t help but return it.

* * *

“So you’re dead.” 

Milena blinked several times as she sat in Pepper’s office a few days after announcing that she wanted to stay at the Tower. Maria Hill sat in the chair beside hers, opposite Pepper’s desk.

“What?”

“Shortly after you and your family went missing, you were declared legally dead. It must have been HYDRA’s way of keeping people from looking for you. It obviously makes the process of securing you a work visa more complicated,” Pepper explained gently, a sympathetic look on her face.

Milena frowned. “How do we make me...not dead?”

“Well, that’s the issue,” Maria explained. The brunette had been sitting in on meetings with Pepper to discuss her upcoming employment and originally, Milena had assumed she was with human resources, but the more time went on, the less she was sure. “Going through the motions of proving you are who you say you are, explaining your absence, and having it all reversed -- if anyone from HYDRA is still out there…”

“They would know I was alive, too.” Milena gasped, suddenly feeling out of breath and nauseous.

Maria turned and looked her in the eye. “We aren’t going to let that happen.” She glanced at Pepper for a moment who nodded. “Before I worked for Stark Industries, I worked for SHIELD,” she explained. “While the agency is gone, I still have enough contacts who can help create you a new backstopped identity so that you could work, travel, and stay here in New York without anyone questioning it.”

“Is that legal?” Milena asked, looking at both of the other women apprehensively.

“In the strictest sense of the word, no,” Maria admitted. “But it would keep you safe. The only catch is that we’d have to do more than just create you a new identity, we’d have to completely burn your old one. Medical records, dental records, fingerprints, birth certificate, citizenship documentation, anything that might let someone connect who you were to who you are.”

“I understand if it’s something that you need to think over,” Maria told her.

Staring for a moment, Milena shook her head. “I think that perhaps, Milena Kovač died long ago underground. If it is something that will help and keep HYDRA from finding out I am here, we should do it.”

Maria looked at her for a moment before nodding. “We’ll start scrubbing your identity first and make sure that it doesn’t raise any flags, after that we’ll talk about your new identity.”

“So I am dead.”

“So you’re dead,” Maria agreed.

* * *

Milena took to spending most of her time in the lab with Bruce and Tony. While she was not yet an official Stark Industries employee, it helped to have something to focus on that once brought her joy. Sleep was still difficult and she was still adjusting to her new place in Avengers Tower. 

While Tony was excited to have her there, he often got lost in his own projects with a laser focus that she wasn’t sure how to interrupt. She took to sitting at Bruce’s work station and found him much more inclined to walk her through everything that he was doing and why. He would even quiz her, responding with excitement every time she answered correctly. 

At one point, she suggested an alternative way of routing power through a new piece of equipment and he beamed at her with pride. Later that same day, she couldn’t help but smile when he informed everyone over dinner that she had helped with a big breakthrough.

One day, she sat in the lab, watching him work and listening to him recount a story about his days in medical school.

“Luka wanted to be a doctor when he was younger.”

“Your brother?”

She nodded, glancing away for a moment. “Do you have any siblings?”

“Only child,” he informed her.

“Were you close with to parents?”

She watched a pained expression flicker across his features. “I was close to my mom when she was around. My father was an atomic scientist and he...well, nothing that I ever did seemed to be good enough for him. He was never proud of me. And the more that my mother tried to compensate for that lack of affection, the worse my relationship with him got. After she was gone, he had a pretty hands-off relationship and I stayed with my Aunt Susan.”

Bruce took off his glasses, wiping them clean with a microfiber cloth and fidgeting with them for a moment. “She called me when I was working at Culver to let me know that my father was sick, but I was too busy working and trying to earn more PhDs to...” He sighed and placed his glasses back on. “And then she passed away after...when I had left the country.”

“He would be proud of you now. So would your aunt and mother,” Milena informed him.

“Because I’m an Avenger?” he asked with a wry smile.

“Because you are a good man.”

“I’m sorry that you lost your family, Millie,” he told her. “But I’m glad you’re here to become a part of mine.”

* * *

Milena felt the air leave her lungs as she landed hard on the mat. 

The training facility was impressive and housed underground beneath Avengers Tower. There was a regular gym on the second floor that all employees of Stark Industries were free to use during their breaks or before and after work. But special accommodations had been made to afford the team privacy and the necessary equipment.

There were tall ceilings and rafters, making it possible for Clint to climb and Sam to test new upgrades to his wings. There were reinforced punching bags for Steve to box with. There was an obstacle course that JARVIS could carry out simulations with, changing the terrain to create more of a challenge. But the part that she was becoming most familiar with were the mats that cushioned her fall every time Natasha took her down.

“Again,” Natasha insisted, offering her hand out to help her up.

Grunting, Milena batted her hand away, climbing up on her own and assuming a defensive position.

“Keep your hands up and remember what I taught you,” Natasha instructed.

Just as she was about to strike, two strong arms wrapped around her from behind.

“Never assume anyone you’re fighting is going to fight fair or be alone,” Natasha reminded her as she struggled to break from Clint’s grasp. Desperately, she threw her elbow back into his ribs and winced when he grunted in pain.

“Sorry, Clint!” she exclaimed as he let go. She turned to see if he was all right just before he swept her legs out from under her. She tried to jump away but lost her footing and fell to the mat once more.

“Again,” Natasha instructed as Milena huffed in frustration.

“Agent Romanov,” JARVIS’s voice calmly interrupted them. “Mr. Stark requests that you all make your way upstairs. Ms. Hill is calling a meeting.”

Milena picked her head up to look at Clint and Natasha who each offered her a hand to pull her to her feet. She tried to fight the uneasiness in her stomach as they made their way to the elevator to meet the others.

When they arrived, they found the others in the common room. Bruce and Sam were sitting on the sectional while Maria stood in front of the flatscreen television, flanked on either side by Steve and Tony.

Clint perched himself on the arm of the sofa with Natasha taking a spot against the wall adjacent to the couch. Milena fidgeted but took a seat and looked at the others expectantly.

“We’ve officially scrubbed all records of Milena Kovač, she no longer exists. We’ve been keeping tabs out for any chatter and so far it doesn’t seem to have raised any red flags so we believe that since the dismantling of the base in Croatia, HYDRA has presumed you legitimately dead and is no longer keeping tabs on anything having to do with your life or identity.”

She breathed out a sigh of something akin to relief. While she knew she couldn’t completely stop looking over her shoulder, it made her feel better that they weren’t actively searching for her.

“Now what’s left is creating and backstopping your new identity. We’ll keep some details, like your age, so it will be easier for you to keep your story straight if you come under scrutiny,” Maria explained. 

“We thought that, maybe, you’d like to connect your identity to one of us,” Tony added. “It would give some cover as to why you’ll be residing in the Tower. While working as a lab assistant explains strange hours, having an employee residing here could raise some red flags. You can be anyone but my illegitimate daughter,” he told her cheekily.

“Would it not raise suspicions for someone to suddenly appear as a relative to some of the most famous faces on the planet?” she asked curiously.

“Leave that to us,” Maria assured her.

Milena glanced around the room before nodding. “Bruce.” She could feel everyone’s gaze on her. “We can say he helped get me the job in the lab, yes? Agent Romanov and Agent Barton’s personal lives are rather private to begin with. Captain Rogers was an only child and both of his parents had passed before he even enlisted. Bruce makes the most sense. If that is all right with Dr. Banner, that is.”

She looked up and made eye contact with Bruce for the first time since she’d started speaking. He smiled kindly at her before turning to Maria and Tony himself. “I had aunts, she could be a cousin. I can work with you to sort out the details so it’s believable.”

The rest of the room seemed to nod in agreement and Tony picked up a tablet, tapping on it for a moment before transferring the image onto the flatscreen. There, staring back at them, was a mocked-up passport with her photo attached.

“And so Millie Banner was born.”

She scrunched her nose a bit as Tony made sure to type in the name Millie, but when he just looked at her and shrugged innocently, she couldn’t help but laugh.

* * *

It took about a week for Millie Banner’s identity to be fully backstopped. By the end of it, both she and Bruce were in awe of the thoroughness of Maria Hill’s connections. The age difference between them helped explain why anyone who’d once known Bruce might not be familiar with Millie.

They’d even gone through the trouble of fabricating some family photos, using real images to create the image of a family and a life she’d never really led. 

It was hard at first, she could recall when certain photos of her had been taken. But instead of being surrounded by her parents and brother, she stood next to people whose faces she didn’t truly know.

Bruce did his best to take her mind off of it, concocting silly stories about what she’d been like as a child in their fictitious family history to make her smile as they worked in the lab.

Once things like paperwork were filed away and fake stories rehearsed and memorized, it was surprisingly easy for Millie to settle into her new life and routine. Every morning, she’d wake up and make a pot of coffee for the rest of the team before meeting Natasha or Clint -- sometimes both -- to train. Natasha focused on hand-to-hand combat and self-defense and Clint worked on target practice and weapons. They’d work for a few hours and by the time they would make it back upstairs, she was sore and exhausted.

Her afternoons were typically free. Tony had to focus on more than just tinkering in the lab and since he usually kept odd hours, she had a fairly flexible schedule while he was busy doing other things. Steve taught her how to tune up a motorcycle and shared books with her. Sam would trade music recommendations with her and check in on her whenever he wasn’t in Washington D.C. He even convinced her to start keeping a journal about her feelings and the nightmares that had been plaguing her ever since her rescue. Pepper sometimes invited her to lunch. Once, Natasha took her into Times Square with Clint and Sam and they ran a drill to see if she could tell she was being followed.

Then she’d spend her evenings in the lab, taking notes while Tony and Bruce worked and asking her own questions. She occasionally supplied more suggestions and was always glad to find them well received. When Bruce and Tony began discussing the best way for her to continue her education, she was ecstatic.

Weeks went by like this and she was beginning to finally feel normal -- or as normal as anyone could when they were still plagued with nightmares of death and torment at night and living with a bunch of superheroes by day.

Then Helen returned from Seoul. Immediately, the fact that she hadn’t wanted to share her findings over the phone made Millie worried.

“There are still plenty of anomalies in your genetic code, Millie,” Helen told her as the two women sat down across from each other. Steve and Bruce joined them. Tony was traveling with Pepper again. “You have all of the markers that are associated with a mutation, one passed down from both of your parents. The fact that abilities haven’t manifested itself doesn’t suggest to me that it’s recessive so much as dormant. There’s a very strong possibility that it just hasn’t happened yet.”

“What about the serum HYDRA administered?” Millie questioned, not sure she was wrapping her head around the idea that she’d inherited any sort of ability naturally from her parents.

“Captain Rogers has always said that the serum doesn’t spontaneously produce abilities.”

“That’s right, it just takes what’s there and makes it...more,” he said. “Or that’s how it was explained to me.”

“Right. While we can’t be sure that the serum HYDRA developed worked exactly the same, we know it’s what they were trying to model. In your case, as we noted last time we spoke, something in your system was binding itself to the chemical structure of the serum. Instead of the serum enhancing your genetic code, it seems that your cells are breaking down the serum and absorbing it in their own unique way.”

“What does that do?”

“Until any abilities manifest, it’s hard to tell. We administered many tests to your blood samples in the lab, but couldn’t simulate anything synthetically.”

“So we must wait to see when or if I develop a power like my parents and brother?”

“I doubt it would be like their abilities,” Helen admitted. “When Maria Hill worked on purging records of you, she was able to get me access to some of your family’s medical records. Based on comparative analysis, your genetic structure is beyond even what theirs looked like.”

“What does that mean, Dr. Cho?” Steve asked.

“This is something completely new. At least to my knowledge.”

Millie fidgeted for a moment and she felt Steve shift his gaze to her. “Are you okay?”

“Are there going to be more tests?” she asked softly.

Helen looked at her. “Like I said, we can’t seem to stimulate any responses in the samples you gave.”

“That does not answer my question.”

When Helen only looked at her in confusion, Steve crossed the room, crouching down so that he was eye level in front of her chair. He turned over his shoulder to look at Helen, “I think she’s asking if you want to run tests on her, rather than just a sample.” Facing Millie again, he shook his head. “I told you we’re not going to do that to you. I wish you’d start trusting me, Mill.” 

“It would give you answers though?”

“Not necessarily,” Helen said firmly. “Unless or until an ability manifests on its own, there’s no reason to think that testing directly on you would yield different results. We’ll monitor the situation, continue examining the samples I took, but that’s it.”

Millie nodded, still slightly in disbelief. But Steve was right, sooner or later she needed to start trusting them more. They’d been kind to her and were protecting her, she had no reason to believe that anomalies in her test results would make them change the way they were treating her.

She was about to speak when a loud crash of thunder outside interrupted them.

“That’s strange,” Helen noted. “The forecast didn’t call for rain. I hope it doesn’t delay my flight later today.”

Steve and Bruce shared a look before looking at the others. “It won’t,” Bruce said simply before gesturing for the rest of them to follow him out of the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're coming up on the events of Age of ULTRON in the next chapter, reimagined with Millie's presence on the team and a glimpse into what Bucky Barnes is up to while all of that is going on. Thanks for sticking with me!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go. I couldn't wait to update with this chapter despite not a day going by. Thank you all for being so patient while I set things up. In this chapter, as promised, we're diving into a bit of Age of Ultron and talking a lot more about our favorite Winter Soldier.

“Banner!” a loud jovial voice boomed the moment the elevator doors slid open. “And Steven!”

Millie and Helen both followed the men off of the elevator and found themselves staring at a brick wall of a man with long blonde hair carrying a hammer.

“Thor,” Steve greeted, offering his hand out. 

Thor took it and pulled him in, patting him on the back with his other hand before turning to look at the rest of them. “And who are your lovely companions?”

“This is Dr. Helen Cho and this is Millie.”

Helen looked completely gobsmacked as she took in the sight of the Norse god in front of them. Thor, to his credit, flashed a blinding smile at her and took her hand in his before turning to look at Millie. His eyes zeroed in on the Stark Industries badge that hung from the lanyard on her neck.

“Millie Banner?” he questioned as he read her name before turning to look at Bruce. “My friend, is she a relation of yours?”

“‘She’ can respond for herself, you know,” Millie interjected.

Thor turned back to her for a moment before barking out a laugh. “A quick and strong woman! Much like the Lady Sif. Forgive me, Lady Millie. I meant no disrespect.”

“Thor, why don’t you take a seat? We were going to have lunch.”

Clint and Natasha soon joined them and Clint immediately walked into the kitchen, Millie trailed in after him, silently working beside him to pull a quick lunch together. He looked her in the eye as he wordlessly passed over the salad dressing in an attempt to gauge how her talk with Helen had gone. She offered him a smile and a nod to assure him that she was doing fine and would fill him in later.

Thor sat at the table with Bruce and Steve, telling fantastic sounding stories about his exploits back on Asgard and across the other realms. Millie listened until Tony and Sam entered, the two of them discussing new upgrades to Sam’s flight kit before Sam dropped off mid-sentence and approached her. He slung an arm over her shoulder, pulling her into a sideways hug and stealing a slice of cucumber from the salad.

Millie grinned up at him and instantly chided herself for being so foolish to worry only moments ago that the people she’d met would ever subject her to any kind of testing or treatment similar to HYDRA. 

“And then the Lady Sif thrust her broadsword into the heart of the foul creature!” Thor exclaimed, causing Millie to jump slightly and then chuckle. She watched the way Helen sat beside him, engrossed and hanging on his every word.

When lunch was finally ready and everyone was seated around the table, Thor sat back in his seat. “A fine feast, thank you,” he nodded at Clint and Millie. “However, I am still very curious as to how you have come to join us, Lady Millie.”

Gazes around the table seemed to shift towards her and she realized that no one felt capable of telling her story for her. So she took a breath. “My family and I were taken by HYDRA,” she explained. “They kept me captive for months, Steve and the team found me when they were raiding the base where I was kept and brought me back to New York. My family is gone and in order to keep HYDRA from finding out that I am still alive, Maria Hill scrubbed any trace that I existed before and created a new identity for me. Millie Banner. I work at the Tower now.”

Thor observed her for a moment and nodded. “You have my condolences for the loss of your family,” he informed her. “I have lost both my mother and my brother, it is a pain that no one should ever bear. And I swear unto you that if I can be of assistance in ridding your realm of this HYDRA once and for all, I will do everything in my power to see it through. While it cannot bring back what was stolen from you, perhaps it will bring you peace.”

The rest of the table nodded in agreement.

“It’s been a while since we had any sort of a lead on a base,” Steve admitted. Millie didn’t miss the way other members of the team looked at him. There was an emotion there that she couldn’t place.

“It is actually HYDRA that beckons my visit to Midgard,” Thor informed them. “With SHIELD gone and the knowledge that it had been infiltrated, my father worries about my brother’s scepter. Its power is beyond that of this realm and Odin insists that it could be kept safer in his vaults. Heimdall has been searching for its whereabouts but it is somehow shielded,” he informed them. “It is our fear that it has fallen into the hands of men who would use its power for dark purposes and so I shall be searching for it.”

“So you’re here for a while, Point Break?” Tony questioned.

“It would seem so, Stark.”

* * *

Life in the Tower continued on.

Thor’s presence added its own unique element to it as well. While he would not train with Millie, he frequently observed her sparring sessions with Natasha in the early mornings when he was not searching for Loki’s scepter. He would give her tips and bits of advice to aid in her training but never agreed to assist her, seemingly worried about hurting her.

In addition to her regular training, Steve started taking her along with him on runs and Tony programmed JARVIS to run modified simulations for her. More and more, she felt like her training was shifting from purely self-defense and evasion to full-on combat preparation.

The rest of the team had been briefed on Helen’s findings the day Thor arrived and while no one said anything about it, Millie could tell that they were all -- to varying degrees -- curious about whether or not a power would manifest itself and what it would be. She tried to ignore it but she couldn’t help but feel like she was unsure if she was suddenly feeling eager for something to change or becoming desperate for things to remain the same.

When she wasn’t training, she was typically down in the lab. She worked diligently beside Bruce and Tony. Pepper had made arrangements for her to begin accumulating credit for a degree in Engineering through a mix of practical experience and work study in the lab and online coursework. While eventually, she would start attending classes, the uncertainty regarding her potential abilities kept her from running out to register for a semester’s worth of lectures.

Sam continued to talk to her, counseling her through her rougher days as she still struggled to come to terms with what had happened and her new life with the Avengers. After a few more weeks of restless nights and one evening where she’d nearly collapsed in the lab from exhaustion, Bruce helped her obtain sleeping pills which blessed her with dreamless nights where HYDRA couldn’t haunt her anymore.

Until one night at the end of March.

* * *

_She was freezing._

_There was snow on the ground._

_Her heavy footfalls were leaving large, deep impressions in her wake. She found a spot up high and, despite the darkness, she could make out movement down below. She raised her weapon, peering through the scope._

**_Don’t aim to kill. You don’t kill anymore. Haven’t killed since Croatia. Incapacitate and move in. Get the information. Send the signal. Have to move and keep running. Can’t stop until the last one is gone. Can’t let the trail go cold again, it took so long to pick it back up. It had been over a month._ **

_The words repeated in her head, a memorized reminder. Her finger was wrapped snugly around the trigger. One of the men below wandered away from the building, heading closer to the treeline._ **_Aim for the knee._ ** _A little bit of pressure. A blood-curdling scream._

_They knew she’d arrived. She knew they were scared._

* * *

Jolting awake in a cold sweat, Millie looked around and found herself alone in the safety of her dark bedroom. “What was that?” she muttered to herself. All of it had felt so real -- lining up another man in the sight of a rifle. She was hardly managing with her target practice with Clint, but she’d felt so sure in her dream. And of course, she’d felt even more sure that the men below were all HYDRA.

Trying to shake off the tension the dream had left her with, she climbed out of bed and went out to the kitchen to get a glass of water. She was surprised to see three black duffle bags and Steve’s shield by the elevator and Natasha, Steve, and Sam sipping coffee, she stayed tucked to the corner, peering around to see what was going on. The three of them were dressed in dark tactical gear.

A sleepy looking Clint was looking at them with annoyance. “You could learn to brew it yourself.”

“You make the best pot in the whole place,” Natasha shrugged.

“Millie’s encroaching on your turf though,” Sam added thoughtfully.

“You’re sure about this?” Clint asked them.

“It’s the same signal as before. It’s been over a month since we got one, but...it’s him. I’m sure of it,” Steve said, placing his now empty mug into the sink and turning on the faucet to wash it.

Clint shook his head and batted Steve away. “I’ll take care of that.”

The other two deposited their mugs as well before making their way to the elevator. 

Clint shoved his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants and nodded at them as the doors slid open and they stepped inside. “Fly safe, send word once you’re clear.”

Natasha met his gaze and nodded at him before the elevator closed and carried the two of them down.

“Where are they going?” Millie asked, stepping out from the corner and startling Clint a bit.

The sandy-haired marksman turned on the water and washed the three mugs they’d left behind. “Got a lead on a HYDRA base, first one over a month -- since the one they pulled you from, actually.”

_Send the signal...Can’t let the trail go cold again, it took so long to pick it back up. It had been over a month._

Millie stared at the elevator. “How did they get the lead?” she questioned.

Clint shook his head. “Not important. You all right? Couldn’t sleep again?”

“I am fine. I just...heard the noise. Once I was awake, I could not fall back asleep. Thought I would watch the television.” She didn’t miss Clint’s skeptical gaze but appreciated that he didn’t press the matter anymore. He turned on the television and the two of them sat on the couch, watching infomercials play until they both fell asleep occupying their own area of the sectional.

* * *

Steve, Sam, and Natasha returned two days later.

She had considered telling Steve about the dream she’d had, but then immediately upon their return, Steve shut himself up in his room and Sam went to Washington D.C. for a couple of weeks When she asked after Steve, Natasha seemed to tiptoe around the subject. A few days later when Steve finally emerged from his room. He smiled, made conversation, and laughed at jokes around the dinner table, but she couldn’t help but think that the smile didn’t reach his eyes.

Deciding not to bother him with it at all, Millie occupied herself with more training and work in the lab, purposefully neglecting to tell anyone about the dream she’d had just before Steve and the others had left. She even avoided writing about it in the journal Sam had her keep. 

As time went on, she told herself that she must have just overheard the others getting ready in her sleep and it had translated into her dream. And even though a part of her knew that it was a poor explanation, it kept her distracted.

* * *

“Millie, can you pass me the --” Before Tony could complete his question, she placed the tool in his hand, peering over his shoulder as he worked on an update to his suit. 

Technically, she was done working for the day, because she was only meant to be helping while he tinkered with things for Stark Industries. In fact, Tony had been adamant that Millie not make any notes about his work on the suit lest Pepper find out and it cause issues between them. 

She knew that she should make herself scarce, because the less she knew the less she had to hide and omit from Pepper who had been nothing short of kind to her, but she couldn’t help but be very interested in the workings of the Iron Man suit.

Tony had shared with her, late one night, everything that had happened that had compelled him to create the Iron Legion and then destroy it. How he’d almost lost Pepper. Even though he told the story like he was ready to leave it all behind, with the Arc Reactor no longer in his chest, and focus on being Tony for Pepper instead of Iron Man for the world, she sensed his reluctance to completely let it go.

Bruce had already turned in for the night, so Millie just busied herself straightening up the lab and assisting Tony when he needed it. But after a long stretch of silence, she turned to him.

“Why is Steve so sad?”

“What makes you think he’s sad?” Tony asked, not looking up as he fiddled with some wiring.

“I can just tell.”

“After Barnes vanished and all of the information on HYDRA was put online, we started getting signals alerting us to bases and splinter groups. It’s how Capscicle, Wilson, and Romanov found you.” Placing his screwdriver down, he looked up at her. “At first we thought people were just decrypting the data and sending it to us, but every time they arrive, all of the HYDRA operatives are incapacitated and bound, ready to be arrested. The trail goes cold until another signal comes through. Rogers is convinced it’s Barnes.”

“He...or whoever it is...never hurts anyone?” Millie questioned, remembering that Bucky Barnes had been programmed and trained to be an assassin. Even if he were slowly returning to the man he used to be, she imagined that facing your captors and not hurting them would take a significant amount of restraint.

“Almost never,” Tony amended before looking away from her. When she just stared at him, her gaze narrowing. “When they found you -- it was the first base where they’d been experimenting on people again, Millie. Everyone there was dead. You were the only survivor.”

The words hung in the air for a minute before Tony continued. “Which, admittedly makes for a compelling case for it being Barnes, but we still can’t be sure. Maybe you did it,” he joked. The moment the words slipped out, he regretted them when her posture stiffened.

“I wish I had,” she said softly. “But I do not think…I do not even remember getting out.”

Tony glanced up at her again, placing his tools down and putting a hand on her shoulder. “What matters is you _are_ out, and none of us are going to let anything happen to you again. Come on, kid. It’s late. We can finish working on this tomorrow.”

* * *

Back in her room, Millie opened her closet door and walked to the back of it. She stared at the leather jacket she had been found with when she’d been rescued and ran her fingers over the brushed leather and fleece lining on the inside. There was a small tear inside of one of the pockets.

She ran her finger over the tear and made a mental note to find a sewing kit in the morning. Leaving her closet, she went to her bookcase to retrieve one of the books that Steve had placed there when the room was meant for Bucky. She glanced at the photos on the desk before climbing into bed.

“JARVIS?”

“Yes, Millie?”

“Can you play some music?”

“Certainly, Miss,” the AI replied before gentle, melodious music filled the room. She asked JARVIS to turn off everything but her reading lamp and opened to the first page.

* * *

_She was so cold. She hated the cold, it made her skin crawl._

_She couldn’t get close enough this time and it was infuriating. There was no way to send the signal this time. Too well protected. Not just by guards either. She’d never seen defenses like this at a base before. God, she just wanted to fucking rest and to have come all this way only to not get close enough to find peace._

_She knew what was inside. She knew she had to stop it. But she couldn’t, not without it turning into a bloodbath. She didn’t do that anymore, she couldn’t do that anymore. She refused. She wouldn’t be what they’d made her._

_But when you stripped what they did away, what was left anymore?_

**_Stevie._ **

_But could she ever really go back again? She was a shell. A ghost. A photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy -- looked enough like the original but the lines and edges had begun to blur and the details were lost._

_Maybe this was where she died._

_Sokovia._

* * *

Millie jerked awake from her dream, shivering as though she’d really just been out somewhere, alone in the snowy cold. She was safe and warm, cloaked in the inky blackness of her room. JARVIS must have turned off her reading lamp when she’d fallen asleep, her fingertips felt the hard edges of the book she’d been reading.

Frowning and feeling unsettled again by her nightmare and how real it had felt, she pulled herself from bed and made her way into the kitchen.

She was surprised to find Steve there, pouring over files on a tablet.

“Trouble sleeping?” she asked him gently.

Steve looked up at her, immediately locking the screen of the tablet and placing it aside before nodding. “Yeah, you?” When she nodded back and went about making herself a cup of tea, she could feel his eyes on her. “I thought your nightmares had stopped. Do you want to talk about it?”

“I am fine,” she assured him. As she took a seat on a stool beside him at the counter, she regarded him for a moment. “Are you okay?”

He seemed surprised that she’d asked and immediately began to insist she didn’t need to worry about him. She rolled her eyes. “You call me strong and then work so hard to protect me. You insist that I talk to Sam to work through what happened to me. Who do you talk to?” Taking a sip of her tea, she shook her head at him. “Just because of what happened to me does not mean I cannot listen. You cannot carry and shield everyone and ignore what troubles you, Captain. You have no duty of care with me. We are friends. I should be able to help you as you have all helped me.”

Steve sighed for a moment. “Ever since I found out that Bucky was still alive, I’ve felt...helpless. I understand going into hiding from HYDRA but from me? What if he blames me for not finding him before they did? For assuming he was dead and not even trying to…” He frowned. “We promised we’d be at each other’s side to the end of the line and I just...left him there. I should have looked for him. I should have brought him home.”

“You saved the world. You were after HYDRA.”

“A lot of good that did,” Steve muttered.

“It did,” she insisted. “He would not have wanted you to let them win, Stevie.”

Steve stared at her for a moment, gaping. “Buck used to call me that.” After a moment he sighed, his shoulders slumping down. “I know that you’re right. It doesn’t make knowing that he’s out there on his own any easier.”

“I was only with HYDRA for months,” she told him. “And it seemed like an eternity and you all still seem to treat me like I am some sort of broken thing that needs looking after.” Steve opened his mouth to argue that point and she held her hand up to cut him off. “Which, in some ways, I am. Sam says that is okay. Your friend was with them for so much longer, they made him forget who he was but you have said he recognized you. Perhaps he just wants to put himself back together and figure out who he is after everything that has happened and that he has done. He is not running from you, Captain. I think, maybe, he is trying to run towards himself. You will find him again, I am sure.”

“Thanks, Millie.”

“Will you tell me about him? Maybe it will help.”

Steve smiled wistfully for a moment before nodding. They spent the next several hours like that until the sun came up, Steve talking animatedly about what it had been like growing up in Brooklyn and what his life had been like before he became Captain America. He enthralled her with stories about the best friend who’d come to his aid any time he asked and even when he hadn’t. The more he talked, the more he smiled and Millie was pleased to see the happiness reach his eyes, even if it was accompanied by a twinge of pain. She was glad he was no longer shutting himself off from everyone.

Eventually, they moved to the couch where Millie fell asleep with her head tucked against his shoulder, dozing off somewhere around the time Bucky had come to find him after his mother’s funeral to make sure he was all right and assure him he’d always be there.

* * *

Not long after the night she’d found Steve in the kitchen, she sat with him on one of the training mats after a particularly rough session with Natasha. He’d come down to observe her progress along with Thor and had handed her a water bottle after the redhead had finally taken pity and called it a day. He’d finished his run quickly that morning as Sam had left the previous night

“You’re getting better,” he told her and then laughed when she only glared at him. “I mean it, you are.”

“I do not feel as though I have improved.”

“Maybe you need a break. You’ve been doing nothing but working in the lab and training. You should get out of the tower for a bit.”

“I would not know where to go,” she informed him.

“I was thinking of going out to Brooklyn. I’ve been considering getting my own place outside of the Tower and was going to see if the old neighborhood still felt like home. You want to come? I can show you around.”

“You are moving?” she asked him.

Before he could respond, Maria Hill stepped off of the elevator. “Captain, we need you upstairs. We have a lead on the scepter.”

Less than twenty minutes later, Millie was brewing a pot of coffee for the others while Maria briefed the team on what they knew. “We’ve suspected for a short time now that Wolfgang von Strucker and a few other HYDRA operatives who had infiltrated SHIELD obtained the scepter just prior to the dissolving of the agency. Last night, an encrypted transmission was intercepted that placed him in a country in Eastern Europe, on the border of Slovakia and the Czech Republic.”

Millie froze. “Sokovia.”

Maria whipped her head around and leveled her gaze on Millie. “How did you know that?”

She chewed on her lip for a moment before Tony stepped in. “Millie _is_ from that neck of Europe and I imagine she knows some basic geography.” His defense seemed to suffice and Maria turned back to the team. “Based on intel, I’ve managed to pinpoint a location for the base. It’s larger than any of the others you’ve taken down before, Steve.”

“The transmission you received…” Steve started and Millie didn’t miss the hope in his voice.

“It wasn’t like the others, Steve. It wasn’t like any of the others that have been left. It was a direct transmission from von Strucker going to an operative who was apprehended late last week.”

“So they’re going to be fully armed and operational. The only thing that we have on our side is that they won’t know we’re coming,” Clint nodded, looking over the files they’d been given.

“If the scepter is there, they will undoubtedly be protecting it with as much force as possible,” Thor stated.

As they began talking about plans, Millie noticed that Bruce was sitting on his own looking contemplative. She walked over to him with a cup of coffee and tilted her head. “You are worried.”

He nodded and she took the seat beside him. “You have been working with the others to retain more control, haven’t you?” She knew that when her training sessions ended, Bruce would come down and work with Natasha and that part of what he’d been working on in his free time in the lab were various ways of dealing with the Hulk.

“I just hate when we need to bring him into it,” Bruce admitted as she sat down beside him.

“They need _you.”_

“He’s not me.”

“He is though.” When Bruce looked at her with annoyance, she huffed a sigh. “Sam has been telling me that we cannot pick and choose the things that happen to us, just how we react to them. What happened to you, everything that created the Hulk, that could have killed a person. You survived, Bruce. And it ultimately makes you one of the kindest, patient men I have ever known. The Hulk is not something you chose, but by accepting and working to find the balance… that makes Bruce Banner the hero, not the Hulk.”

Bruce looked at her before reaching to ruffle her hair. “You’re a pretty good cousin.”

She laughed softly before looking at the others as they continued making plans. “When will you leave?” she asked softly.

“Probably soon, if not tonight then early tomorrow morning,” Bruce said, glancing at Thor, Tony, and Steve as they spoke with Maria.

“Right then, let Hulk know I am counting on him to get you home safely.”

Bruce smiled wryly and pulled her in for a hug, promising that they’d all be fine.

* * *

Millie wondered if it was odd that she’d come to think of JARVIS as one of her best friends. She was close to the team in different ways, and for the most part, they all seemed to want to protect her. At times, she found it infuriating and as though she were being coddled when all she wanted to do was move on.

It took the entire team leaving for the mission in Sokovia for her to understand it. Because she wanted to protect them and keep them safe, too. They’d become her family in two short months and she felt helpless at the idea of not being able to aid them in any way. For the first time since meeting with Helen, she felt as though she _did_ want some sort of ability to manifest so she could feel useful.

She saw them off early in the morning, handing them thermoses full of coffee. Thor gave her a parting hug, lifting her right off of the ground and assuring her all would be well. Clint nudged her chin and told her not to worry. Tony gave her specific instructions not to mess with anything he’d been working on in the lab and use their time away to relax a bit.

By the time they were in the air, she was already going stir crazy.

Which brought her back to JARVIS, who seemed to notice her distress and seemed to go above and beyond in attempting to keep her distracted. He took care of ordering food, suggested movies for her to watch, played music while she was reading, and entertained her. From the first night she’d spent in the tower, the AI had been a source of comfort, but when she was left mostly to her own devices, she realized that she counted JARVIS as much as she did the others.

While her first night with them gone had been spent restlessly tossing and turning in bed and messaging Sam, her second involved another vivid dream.

* * *

_She’d been camped out for what felt like an eternity, avoiding von Strucker’s men on their patrols. Avoiding the bizarro wonder twins. Trying to formulate a plan of attack and deciding it didn’t matter if she made it out alive as long as she could get the signal out._

_Then she heard it. The sound of engines -- two jeeps if her ears were to be believed -- followed by heavy fire. A motorcycle. An inhuman roar._

_She ran to higher ground and saw it. A flash of red and gold metal. A huge blur of green. She tensed as Clint was briefly pinned down between the cover some trees afforded. As he reached for another arrow, he didn’t see the operative approaching behind him. She raised her rifle and took him out while he was still twenty feet from Clint, he was on the ground in a snowbank by the time the archer turned around._

_After that she moved quickly from her vantage point, grabbing a few of her things but tossing the rifle on the ground._

_She was done._

_She could rest._

* * *

She woke up with a jolt and found the lights turning on in her room.

“Miss, are you distressed? I have detected irregular heart rate and breathing patterns. Should I contact Mr. Wilson?” JARVIS asked politely.

She shook her head. “I am fine, JARVIS. It was only a dream.” Sitting up, she glanced around the room and took a deep breath before climbing out of bed and settling onto the couch. “JARVIS, will you put on that show I started the other night. And will you let me know when they’re on their way home?”

“Certainly, Millie.”

“Miss,” JARVIS’s voice rang out through the kitchen as she ate her breakfast. “The quinjet is en route back to New York and Mr. Stark wanted me to inform you that Dr. Cho is on her way to treat Agent Barton upon their arrival. He would like you to help her prepare the lab and to make room for his examination of the scepter. He has also requested your attendance at the celebration he is planning.”

“A celebration?”

“Yes. ‘Revels,’ was his exact phrasing.”

Rolling her eyes with a slight chuckle, Millie chewed on her lip. “Is Clint going to be okay?”

“Mr. Stark has asked that I inform you there is no cause for concern.”

“And yet that is not overly comforting, JARVIS,” she replied.

“Ms. Hill will be arriving shortly with more information and to prepare the team for a debriefing.”

Millie sighed, placing her breakfast dishes in the sink before going to get changed and head to the lab to prepare for Helen’s arrival and the team’s return.

Maria was standing in the common area when she emerged freshly showered and changed. She gave Millie a quick rundown of the details of Clint’s injury but when she saw her flinch, softened her expression. “Helen will be able to help. He’ll be fine,” Maria promised.

“You are a soldier,” Millie stated gently. 

“What makes you say that?” Maria asked as she tapped away on her tablet. 

“The things you do, the way you talk. Your resources and connections.”

“You know that I was part of SHIELD before it fell,” Maria told her, never looking up from her screen. Millie peered over her shoulder, staring down at the picture of the young man and woman on the screen. Maria spared her a quick glance. “Captain Rogers says they encountered two enhanced in the field and wanted information. These are the Maximoff twins, they signed up to be experimented on by von Strucker and his men.”

“Twins,” Millie echoed.

_Avoiding the bizarro wonder twins._

“We should get things ready, they’ll be here within the hour.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What did you think? Comments are much appreciated. In the next chapter, we'll be continuing the ULTRON events with Millie in the mix including some revels. Nobody tell my muses how it ends.
> 
> In other exciting news, I'm already 8 chapters into the sequel for this story and am so excited to start sharing it with you. Your kudos and love keep me powering through and I'm a writing machine!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday to Steve Rogers. Here we are continuing the events of Age of Ultron. (Any translations in this story that are not accurate are blamed on Google Translate.)

Millie watched them roll Clint off of the quinjet and felt Helen’s hand on her shoulder before the doctor started instructing her staff in Korean and quickly sprang into action.

“Looks worse than it is,” Natasha assured her softly in passing, reaching for Millie’s hand and squeezing her fingertips briefly before accompanying Clint inside.

Thor climbed off the jet next, giving her a good-natured smile. “I told you, Lady Millie. We are all well. Clint will be treated by healers and be fine, he fought valiantly and lives to tell the tale of the glory of battle.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head before making his way inside. 

Bruce trailed behind and even though he offered her a smile, she knew the trip had been hard on him. She was relieved when he allowed her to pull him into a tight hug. “Welcome home, cousin,” she told him gently before allowing him to walk inside as well.

“Everything is set up in the lab, boss,” Maria informed Tony as Millie caught up with her. Tony made a witty retort before Maria turned her attention to Steve and began briefing him on the Maximoff twins. 

Millie lingered and looked at Tony.

“What?” he asked as he prepared the scepter to take to the lab. 

“It is just good to have you home. Thank you for asking JARVIS to look after me in your absence.”

“I didn’t,” Tony told her before lifting an eyebrow as he considered this for a moment. “Don’t go making my AI like you more than me, Millie,” he grinned.

“What is wrong?”

“What makes you think something is wrong?”

“You are troubled.”

“I never have troubles, Millie,” he informed her cheekily. When she only stared at him, he sighed. “I’m fine. I’m just glad that we got this so that we can stop worrying about HYDRA and the Chitauri.” He jerked his head towards the scepter. “We’re going to throw a party in a couple of days to celebrate. Get your prettiest party dress.”

“I do not own a party dress.”

“Then you’ll have to go shopping for one,” Tony nodded, smiling at her before leading her back inside. “Bruce and I are going to be pretty caught up with fooling around with this thing before Point Break takes it back to Asgard. You should take a couple of days off, won’t be much to do for the company in the lab.” When she opened her mouth to argue as they stepped in from the landing bay and the doors slid closed behind them, he shook his head. “HYDRA was using this to conduct their experiments. I know that nothing else has come up in your tests, but -- I want you to steer clear, just in case..”

Millie sighed but nodded with understanding. “Then, since everything is set up for you to begin your work, I will go check in on Clint.”

“And go shopping. That is an order.”

She rolled her eyes and shoved his arm with a laugh when he reached to ruffle her hair before going to check in on the others.

* * *

“JARVIS?”

“Yes, Millie?”

“Are the others already down there?”

“Everyone except Captain Rogers has gone to the party. He is awaiting Mr. Wilson.”

“Thank you,” she said as she tugged awkwardly at the hem of her dress. 

Natasha had taken her to a store despite her insistence that she probably could have worn something from her closet. The truth was, she didn’t own a dress. She had barely owned any before HYDRA, often preferring jeans. But after sitting vigilantly at Clint’s side while Helen worked and insisting on getting him water even when he kept telling her that he was healed and as good as new, everyone agreed she needed a break from the tower.

She was at least grateful that she was earning some money now as Tony’s lab assistant so that she could pay for the dress herself. At first, she’d negotiated with Pepper to make sure that her work covered her stay in the tower and had tried to reject a salary completely. But Pepper had shown her documentation that indicated lab assistants at Stark Industries were well compensated for their work and it entitled her to at least a small stipend even after factoring in her room and board.

Natasha had selected an armful of dresses for her at the department store and Millie had begrudgingly tried on several before settling on a strapless black and white polka-dot one. The material was soft and comfortable and it didn’t feel too tight or restrictive and the neckline was modest enough that she didn’t feel uncomfortable in it. Though she had to admit that it accentuated her figure quite nicely with a form-fitting bodice and a skirt that flared out at her hips and ended just above her knees. Natasha had then picked out a dark red jacket to wear over it and a pair of kitten heels. She fiddled with her hair, which the redhead had helped her set in loose curls that cascaded over one shoulder.

She felt like a fish out of water, but she knew if she didn’t head down to the party soon, Tony would show up and drag her there himself. He’d already sent three messages to hurry up via JARVIS.

Taking a deep breath, she walked out of her room and towards the kitchen. Steve was standing in the kitchen facing away from her and Sam was opposite him, setting his things down, clearly having just gotten in.

“Daaaamn, Millie,” Sam grinned the moment he saw her.

“Language,” Steve chided before turning around. His eyebrows lifted. “Damn.”

She felt her face turn bright red. “Don’t make fun of me!”

“You look great, girl,” Sam assured her, walking over and pulling her into a tight hug. “You doing all right?”

“People keep asking me that. I’m not the one who went on a daring mission to Sokovia, battled HYDRA, two enhanced, and returned with a magic alien artifact. No one’s asking Steve if he’s okay,” she grumbled. “Or Clint. Who was _shot._ ”

The two men exchanged a look with each other and Sam held his hands up defensively before they both offered to walk her down to the party. 

The moment the elevator doors slid open, she felt overwhelmed. Tony had invited more people that she’d been expecting, having hoped it would just be the team and maybe Maria and Helen. Pepper had left for a business trip just before Tony left for Sokovia, so Millie knew she wouldn’t make it. She looked around the room for familiar faces as Steve and Sam wandered off for a game of pool. Bruce and Natasha were standing by the bar. Clint and Maria joined several strangers who were standing around Thor as he told one of his stories. His arms waved about, one hand clutching a large glass of dark red liquid, as he regaled them with a tale of one of his battles.

She saw Tony over the shoulder of a man he didn’t recognize. “I don’t get it, everywhere else that tank story kills,” the other man was saying, seemingly ignoring the glazed over look in Tony’s eyes willfully.

“Millie,” Tony exclaimed, gesturing her over. “You clean up nice, kid. I wanted you to meet a friend of mine, this is Rhodey.”

“Colonel James Rhodes, ma’am,” the other man introduced himself, holding a hand out.

“Millie Banner,” she replied, shaking his hand and tilting her head. “You are the one they call War Machine, yes?”

“Iron Patriot, but, yeah.”

“I was looking at the schematics for the armor the other week and had a few ideas for upgrades.”

“New weaponry?” he asked.

Millie scrunched her nose. “More like improving the interface’s reaction time as well as flight capabilities,” she shook her head. “I am not so good with weapons,” she explained.

“I’ll say, Barton and Romanov have been trying to teach her to shoot and there’s been a lot of damage to the range,” Tony quipped, grabbing her a drink off of a passing waiter’s tray.

Millie stayed there for a while, making conversation with Tony and Rhodey about potential changes to the armor and other projects she was helping Tony with. Rhodey told her stories about his adventures as War Machine and also bemoaned some of the antics he’d been subjected to over the years by Tony who never looked ashamed by a single word of it.

When Tony was called away by someone else and Rhodey drawn into a conversation with a group of people she didn’t know, she ambled over to the pool table, taking a seat and watching Steve and Sam play. The two men made easy conversation with her before Sam mentioned that he had to leave again later that night to head back to D.C. and Steve casually mentioned his decision to look into a new place to live as well.

Eventually, Steve went to go get himself a drink and Sam sat down beside her.

“Why so glum, sugar plum?” he asked, grinning when she chuckled at his absurd phrasing.

“The truth is, I think I was not okay when the team was gone. I know that they were doing what they had to do, and I am glad that they were able to take out the base and retrieve the scepter. But I was...frightened and scared. HYDRA has already taken so much from me. When I heard that Clint was hurt…”

“But look at him, he’s right there.” Sam gestured before looking her in the eye. “Millie, you can’t spend the rest of your life afraid of what else HYDRA might or might not do. Steve is pretty sure they’re gone for good this time, and if you let your fear keep you from living, they win no matter what.”

“It’s just that you have all become my new family and…” she trailed off. “You are spending more and more time in Washington now that the bases are gone. Steve is going to move. Clint will eventually be spending more time away,” she started before remembering she’d promised to keep his family a secret. “To fully recover from his injury. And Bruce does not like Manhattan, I am sure he will go back to the west coast lab soon.”

“We’re still going to be here for you. Us becoming like family goes both ways.”

She nodded, resting her head on Sam’s shoulder. He let her sit there like him for a while, telling her stories about his time in the Air Force and adventures he’d been having since. He invited her back to Washington sometime so she could sit in on his support group, claiming it might be good for her even though her circumstances were different.

She promised she’d think about it before letting him lead her over to the others, who had also crowded around Thor.

“Lady Millie!” he greeted her happily, tipping his glass towards her in cheers.

“What are you drinking, Thor?”

“Fine Asgardian wine,” he told her proudly. “Not fit for mortal consumption,” he gestured to an old man who was practically passed out against the bar.

“I am not much of a drinker anyway,” she admitted, gesturing to the glass Tony had given her some time ago which was still mostly full. “Will you tell me more about Asgard?”

Thor beamed at her request and the group fell silent as he described the impossibly beautiful sounding realm he called home. He spoke of his childhood there, his adventures with the Warriors Three and Lady Sif. When he mentioned his brother, others in the room -- who had all been residents of New York during Loki’s attack -- grumbled and seemed disinterested. But Millie could tell that it took effort for him not to speak of his memories with some fondness and that he still carried that loss heavily in his heart. She placed her hand on his.

“It sounds beautiful, I wish I could see it,” she told him gently. “Perhaps one day, I will convince Odin to open the gates of Asgard to my Midgardian family,” he told her. “And then you will, little one.”

“You’re going back soon, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I must return the scepter. But I will return. This I promise. And I always keep a promise. In fact, once, many years ago, I made a promise to Fandral.” As Thor slipped into another charming anecdote, Millie sipped her drink and listened.

As the party started to wind down, Tony announced to the team and a few others that there would be an after party just for them. Sam, unfortunately, had to head back to D.C.

“I will see you out on my way up.”

“But Millie!” Tony pouted. “After party!”

“I know, Tony,” she told him with a gentle smile. “But I am exhausted. I did not sleep well while you were away. Now that you are all home safely, I am looking forward to a good night’s sleep.” A few of the others looked concerned at the fact that she hadn’t slept well in their absence, but everyone had the decency to not start a discussion about it now. Instead, she gave her share of goodnight hugs, warned Tony not to do anything that evening that might upset Pepper upon her return home. She glanced at Helen who was asleep on a sofa. “Should I take her, too?”

“It is all right, let her be,” Tony assured her, patting Millie on the shoulder and bidding her goodnight. 

Once Sam was gone, she went to her room. She didn’t bother with the lights and instead just quickly shed her party clothes, pulled on an oversized t-shirt and cotton shorts that she’d taken to sleeping in, and crawled into bed.

“Goodnight, JARVIS,” she muttered as her heavy eyelids forced themselves closed. She was asleep before she even noticed her friendly artificial intelligence companion didn’t answer.

* * *

Millie lurched awake, the sound of broken glass and bullets ringing in her ears. It took her a moment to realize it wasn’t a dream, the sounds were coming from the tower.

“JARVIS, what is happening?” she shouted, jumping from her bed.

Silence.

Another gunshot.

“JARVIS, turn on the lights.”

Her room remained dark.

When she reached the door, it didn’t slide open automatically so she hit the button for the manual override and sprinted to the elevator. When she made it to the others, she gasped at what she saw. Mangled pieces of the Iron Legion, broken furniture, and glass were scattered everywhere.

Clint was the first one to spot her and she ran to him.

“Thank God you’re all right,” he muttered into her hair.

“What happened?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Steve said loudly, leveling his gaze at Tony.

Millie left Clint’s side when she saw Maria helping an injured Rhodey to his feet, coming up on the other side of the man to help him. Tony and Bruce were speaking to each other in hushed voices as they collected up some of the armor and guided everyone into the lab.

“Where’s Thor?”

“Following after a legionnaire,” Natasha informed her. Millie’s brow furrowed and she fished a first aid kit out of one of the drawers, she busied herself cleaning up cuts and scrapes as the others discussed what had happened. 

She felt her anger boil up when she realized that Bruce and Tony’s examination of the scepter hadn’t been the only thing she’d missed while taking a couple of days from the lab. The two men had attempted to harness the power of the scepter to develop a new interface, one to protect the world, and that interface - ULTRON - had become sentient and convinced that the best way to protect the world was to rid it of the Avengers.

“He said he killed someone,” Clint remarked, his eyes flickering to Millie. “I was worried it was you.”

“But we were the only ones in the building,” Maria pointed out.

“No, we weren’t.” Tony murmured, pulling up a projection with his tablet.

“JARVIS,” Millie gasped, trying to make sense of what she was seeing as Bruce took a closer look. She felt Clint reach for and squeeze her fingers.

When Thor burst in and things almost came to blows with Tony, Clint quickly wrapped an arm around Millie to keep her from interfering. Once Steve took control of the discussion, she went to Tony and made to clean a cut on his arm that he’d sustained from some of the broken glass. He jerked away from her.

Immediately, he gave her an apologetic look and let her clean the cut and apply a bandage. “Tony,” she started softly.

He looked at her, pain flickering in his eyes for a moment before he shook his head. “Not now,” he replied.

Sighing, she nodded. “All right, how can I help?”

* * *

They worked until the sun was already up. When Steve announced that Strucker was dead, Millie thought that she would have gotten some sort of satisfaction out of a leading HYDRA commander being taken out, but with a threat looming over them, it only made her stomach lurch. 

There were things in the world worse than men who’d taken her life from her. Things threatening to take hew new life, too.

When the others departed with their first lead and Helen made her way back to Seoul, Millie stayed behind with Maria. While the older woman worked on gathering more intel, Millie did the only thing she could think of -- she started to sweep up.

“We’re going to bring people in to clean the place,” Maria told her gently as she swept bits of glass into a dustpan.

“I do not mind the excuse to keep busy. Music might help, too. JARV--” she started, but then trailed off, frowning and heaving a heavy sigh.

Maria looked at her for a moment. “You know, I dedicated my entire life to working for SHIELD and when Nick Fury started the Avengers Initiative I was skeptical. And maybe a bit resentful. I’d put years into training and working hard because I believed in SHIELD’s mission, and they were going to hand it off to people who hadn’t really put in that same sweat and effort. It didn’t take long for me to realize what a special group they actually were. They’re a strong team, they’ll be okay.”

“It is just frustrating when I cannot do anything to help them. Helen has been saying she suspects I have abilities that will manifest but they have not. What good am I to anyone sitting here, waiting for them to come home? If I’m so special, why can I not do anything to assist them?” Millie exclaimed, tears prickling her eyes. “HYDRA forced me to watch my parents and brother die, hoping the emotional duress would elicit a response. I could not do anything then. And now that I have found a new family that has done so much to protect me -- I cannot do anything again. What use am I?”

Maria pulled her into a hug, shushing her gently. It was a rare show of empathy and emotion from the other woman and left Millie speechless. It also made her realize that she’d started crying.

“You have been through a lot, Millie. No one expects you to strap on some armor and go join the fight. Let me tell you something else about that very special group of individuals out there. Sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of things for them. I think carrying the weight of the world’s safety can make them forget about the little things they’re working to protect. There’s a reason every single one of them has become invested in helping you heal. Stark might want to put a suit of armor around the world, but I think maybe we just need a string -- a common thread that reminds them what they’re fighting for. Maybe that’s what you are. And that’s not useless.”

Millie considered this for a moment and nodded, muttering a small thank you to Maria who stepped away from her and shifted her body weight almost awkwardly after the hug.

“Come on, let’s get something to eat. I could use a break from staring at screens,” Maria suggested. “I can still monitor the situation from your floor.”

* * *

Hours later, Maria fielded multiple phone calls while Millie knelt in the middle of the common room floor, her eyes glued to the coverage from Johannesburg. 

“Bruce,” she whispered softly as the news helicopter from above zoomed in on the Hulk sitting in the rubble of the building after a knockdown drag-out brawl with Tony in the Hulkbuster armor they’d all worked on together in the lab.

“I’m about to put in a call to them,” Maria told her, gesturing for her to follow.

Millie couldn’t help but feel her chest ache at the tone of Tony’s voice as they spoke. He assured them that they were all alright, but Millie knew better. A glimpse of Bruce in the background and the anguish on her face made her wish that she was there.

When Maria advised them to go underground, Millie frowned. They exchanged a few more words before Maria stepped aside to give Millie a few moments to talk to them. 

“What can I do?” she asked softly. 

“You need to get out of the tower,” Tony told her. “We’re going to be picking up a lot of attention, ULTRON still knows that’s where we were based out of and we can’t come home to protect you.”

“But where will you go?”

“We can’t tell you that,” Tony told her, even though she could tell he wasn’t sure. “I’m going to have Hill get in touch with someone. One of the people I trust more than anything in this world. You’ll be safe and we’ll let you know when to come back, okay?”

She nodded and then sighed. “Can I talk to Bruce or Steve?”

Tony seemed to peer over his shoulder and looked back at her hesitantly. “They’re okay. But not right now.” She watched as he looked to his side. “Hold on. Barton wants to talk to you.”

“Hey, kid,” he greeted her gruffly. She could tell that he was tired and concerned. “You listen to Stark and go where he tells you.”

“But what about you?”

“I’m taking them someplace safe,” he told her and then offered her a smile. “Bruce and the others will be alright. We’ll be home before you know it.”

She peered back at him skeptically but sighed. “Take care of them, old man,” she murmured.

“Take care of yourself, kid.”

* * *

An hour later, Millie was sitting in the passenger’s seat of a black Audi with Happy Hogan beside her behind the wheel.

“You know, normally people sit in the back,” he remarked, glancing at her as they drive further from the city.

“You were named rather ironically, were you not, Happy?” she replied glumly, looking out the window.

“My first name is Harold,” he replied before he fell back on the silence that they’d been driving in for nearly three hours. 

“You are worried about them, too,” she pointed out, glancing at him as he drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. 

“I don’t really know most of them that well. But I’ve been working for Mr. Stark for…” he trailed off a moment and then sighed. “But yeah, I’m worried.”

Millie sighed. “Where are we going?”

“There’s a cabin. It’s another hour from here. It’s safe and quiet and not in Tony’s name, so the government won’t think to look for him and the others there.”

“Is Pepper safe?”

“She’s still on her trip, there’s another security team with her, plus most of the Stark Industries legal team,” he grinned a bit. “She’ll be alright. Pissed, but alright.” He fiddled with the controls for the air conditioning before glancing at her briefly. He put his eyes back on the road. “So you’re Bruce Banner’s cousin, yeah?”

She let out an affirmative sounding sort of grunt.

“I saw the footage from Johannesburg,” he mentioned hesitantly.

“So did I.”

“Are you okay?”

“I will be once they are all home.”

Sighing, Happy put on his right blinker, merging towards the next exit.

“I thought you said it was still over an hour away.”

“We need to stop for food. You could use a cheeseburger.”

When they arrived at the cabin, Millie was only slightly surprised that it was actually a very modern looking home outfitted with all sorts of tech and amenities. It just so happened to be in the middle of the woods.

There was a gym in the basement, a large kitchen that would make even the most talented gourmet chef gobsmacked with envy, and a large balcony that overlooked a lake. When Millie settled in and then announced that she was going to the gym, Happy agreed to join her and help her with her training.

Afterward, she took a long shower and Happy offered to prepare dinner. Millie couldn’t help but be surprised when she came downstairs to a full spread of food and he pretended to be hurt when she was surprised that he could cook at all.

“I’m not Bruce’s cousin,” she informed him, midway through their meal.

“What?” he asked.

“Tony said you are one of the people he trusts most in this world. I did not want to lie to you. I am not Bruce’s cousin.”

“I know,” Happy replied, looking at her and taking in her shocked expression. “Tony told me about you when you first arrived,” he explained. When she only tilted her head and blinked at him, he made a gesture with his hand. “I have a sister, so he wanted to know what she liked when she was upset. She’s a bit of a bookworm, so I listed off some books I know she liked.”

Millie thought back and remembered when Natasha had first come by with bags full of clothing and books. She smiled softly at the idea that Tony had reached out to someone for an idea on how to bring her comfort.

“What is your sister like?” she asked as she scooped an extra portion of mashed potatoes onto her plate.

Happy leaned back and they spent the rest of the evening with him fondly telling her stories about his younger sister.

“God, my parents lucked out with her. She was calm and quiet, even as a baby. And she loved to read and enjoyed school. Which was great, I don’t know if they could have handled another one of me -- clamoring around and getting into scrapes. But man, I remember meeting her in the hospital for the first time and thinking I would do anything for my baby sister,” he admitted, sipping on his beer. “I got into my first fight ever protecting her from some bullies on the playground,” he admitted. “After that, I realized I liked fighting.”

Happy told her more about growing up with his family, his career as a boxer, and how he’d met Tony until they were both exhausted and all of the food was gone. Millie insisted on washing the dishes since Happy had cooked and once everything was clean and drying, they said goodnight.

The first full day at the cabin went by quietly, Happy could tell that she was distracted and worried about the others. She sat in front of the television, scanning the news channels for any new stories about their whereabouts or developments with ULTRON. Eventually, a pair of boxing gloves landed on the couch beside her.

“Come on,” Happy told her gruffly. “Let’s train.”

He instructed her in the gym until she could hardly lift her arms and collapsed on the mat, breathing raggedly.

“Not bad. You’ve been working with Romanov?” he questioned. When she propped herself up with her elbows and nodded, he bobbed his head. “She and I fought once.”

“How did that go for you?”

“Still nursing the bruises to my ego,” he admitted.

Millie insisted on cooking dinner that night, but halfway through her attempt at making it, Happy got frustrated with her knife skills and shooed her aside before demonstrating the proper technique. “I think in another life, I would have been a chef,” he admitted, telling her that he’d learned all of his recipes from his mother who had hoped that teaching him to cook would have given him a more creative outlet for his emotions than fighting.

At her insistence, they ate together in front of the television while she continued to search the news stations, and once dinner was finished and the kitchen cleaned, she returned to her spot on the sofa again.

Happy kept her company until he eventually dozed off in an armchair, snoring softly.

Millie draped a blanket over Happy before returning her attention to the television. For hours, she sat there until she finally couldn’t fight off sleep anymore.

* * *

_The streets were crowded as she wove her way through the market. All around her, vendors at stalls were trying to get her attention. She kept her hands shoved into her pockets._

_Work had been long but peaceful and she was grateful she’d found some off the books work. The manual labor felt familiar, like something she’d done in another lifetime._

_She stopped by the fruit stand, nodding at the old woman there. She was still trying to figure out what she liked to eat._

_“Prunele sunt în sezon,” the older woman insisted, gesturing to her selection of plums. Millie popped a few into a bag, paid for them with the new money lining her pockets from work, and moved to make her way home. She was almost clear of the market when something caught her eye._

_Stalking over towards the newsstand, she stared at the front page of the paper._ **_Avengers de Distrugere din Johannesburg!_ **

_She thought of Steve, wondering if he was safe. She concentrated hard to remember everything she could about him, an exercise she practiced often as an anchor. His mother’s name was Sara. He used to stuff newspapers into his shoes. Then she remembered, Stevie could take care of himself now and she was trying to live a different life._

* * *

Millie woke up with a start, brow furrowing as she tried to remember the dream she’d just awoken from but was quickly distracted from her thoughts when she heard a clatter from the other room.

She realized that the blanket she’d draped over Happy the night before was now tucked around her. Pushing it off of her, she went in search of the sound of the noise. She found him in an office down the hall on the main level of the cabin. It was lined with bookshelves.

“Sorry if I woke you,” Happy muttered as he bent down to pick up the books off the floor.

“I did not know that Tony read this much,” she admitted.

“This isn’t Tony’s place,” Happy informed her. Millie was already looking around, glancing at the titles on the shelves and recognizing several as books Tony had sent her. On another shelf was a photo of Happy standing in the middle of Pepper and Tony, clearly at some sort of party. While Happy wasn’t smiling in the photograph, Pepper was beaming and Tony had his head tilted back in a laugh. “That was the day I got promoted to head of security.”

“This is your home?”

“Tony gave it to me, as a gift, after I got hurt a while back,” he explained. “I spent a few months here recovering and try to come up now and then just to clear my head or invite my family for the holidays.”

“Thank you for bringing me here and letting me use your gym.”

He waved his hand dismissively at her thanks. “It should get used more. Anyway, I was just grabbing you some books I thought you might like. Can’t spend all day every day just in front of the news.”

She smiled, eyeing the stack of books in his arms before helping take some of them from him.

A few hours later, Happy placed a plate with a grilled cheese sandwich in front of her and huffed. She had a book propped open but kept peering over it to look at the television. “I didn’t mean you should watch the news _and_ read.”

“I just want to see if anything happens, or if the government makes any decisions about Bruce.”

Later that night, Millie realized that an update on how the team was doing didn’t necessarily mean being comforted. She and Happy watched in wide-eyed disbelief as Steve and ULTRON battled on top of a moving truck and the quinjet soared over the streets of Seoul before Natasha took off on a motorcycle to offer assistance.

Millie gasped in horror as several cars flipped, nearly taking out Steve in the process.

When both ULTRON and Steve went crashing through onto a train, Happy put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“Is that --” Happy asked, as an unmistakable flash of red hair leapt onto the truck just before two of ULTRON’s robots came and lifted the truck’s container right off of the ground, the quinjet following after. Most of the footage was being taken from news cameras with feeds from onlookers’ social media feeds playing picture in picture.

Millie wasn’t sure where to look. The train careening through the streets towards innocent civilians with Steve still on board or the jet following after the now-airborne truck bed.

Happy sharply inhaled and her eyes darted back to the truck as something seemed to fall from it into the waiting quinjet. But there was something else, a quick flash of something, flying to and then quickly away from the quinjet.

“Did you see if Natasha…” Millie started, biting her lip.

Happy had already reached for his phone, trying to call Tony and failing to get through. After that, he answered a call from Pepper and stepped out of the room.

As Millie watched dozens of people helped off of the train, she looked desperately for any sign of her friends. “Please be okay,” she whispered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! The conclusion of the events of ULTRON are up next, which means we're getting closer to Civil War (just a few chapters away). And you know what that means: the official emergence of our favorite guy.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, friends I was away and thought I would have more internet than I did -- as an apology, I will probably post one chapter a day for a couple of days (at least until we get to Bucky's tangible arrival)
> 
> Here is the next chapter that includes the conclusion of the events of Age of ULTRON and some of its aftermath.

Things were not okay.

If Millie was hoping for answers after the chaos in Seoul, she was only given more to worry about the next day. All attempts to contact Maria Hill were futile and when the news finally stopped covering what had happened the previous day, it was only to cut to live footage of Sokovia.

“Who’s that?” Happy asked as footage caught glimpses of three newcomers, a young man with light almost white hair, a young dark-haired woman, and a man with purple skin and armor.

The two of them sat, glued to the television screen, as Novi Grad was pulled from the earth, people and cars plummeting to down as it continued to rise. Happy squeezed her hand when the helicarrier arrived and Rhodey alongside it to help evacuate the citizens to safety. In all of the chaos, she kept catching glimpses of and then losing sight of the team. The camera crews could only get footage from the ground below, but they didn’t miss the sight of the quinjet open firing on the ground below. “ULTRON,” Millie breathed before a tiny blur of green seemed to leap from the floating landmass onto the helicarrier and then back again before launching itself at the jet.

Every time the familiar flash of red metal zipped through the sky, Happy and Millie leaned in closer to the television.

When they caught a glimpse of Tony flying beneath the city, Millie sucked in a breath and seemed to forget how to exhale. When the city plummeted down towards the earth before shattering, Millie cried out.

“Where are they?” she demanded as Happy tried to calm her down, his own look of horror on his face.

A couple of hours later, her phone rang and she leapt for it. “Hello?”

“Millie,” Sam breathed.

“Sam!” she all but shouted. “What is going on? Do you know anything? Are they okay?”

“I watched it happen on television, same as you. Are you okay?”

“I am somewhere safe.”

“That isn’t what I meant. Listen, I’m sure they’re all fine. I just wanted to make sure that you were.”

“Sam, if something happened to any of them...” she muttered tearfully into the phone. 

“You can’t think like that, I’m sure that we’re going to hear from them soon. If I do you know you’ll be my first call. Have some faith in them, baby girl.” When she snorted at the nickname, he let out a dry chuckle. “I was hoping you’d laugh at that.”

“I’ll be your first call if you hear from them?”

“You know it. And I’ll see you soon regardless, all right?”

After she muttered her goodbyes to Sam, Happy tried to get her to eat something but all she could do was stare at her phone, waiting for it to ring. As the hours stretched on, she refused to sleep and couldn’t focus on any book she tried to pick up. She kept rewatching the footage on the news, hoping to see a glimpse of one of them.

The sun was coming up when her phone finally rang. “Hello?” she answered it urgently.

“Millie.”

“Clint!” she exclaimed happily. “Are you okay? Are you hurt? Is everyone alive?”

Clint took a deep breath. “The team is in one piece, more or less. We would have called you sooner, but we had to help the people on the ground, coordinate the cleanup, and debrief,” he explained. “We’re flying out of Sokovia now.”

“How long until you are back?” she questioned.

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” he told her gently. “I’m not coming back to New York. I’m going to stay out on the farm with Laura and the kids.”

“Until the baby is born?”

“For good. It’s time for me to get out of the game, Millie.”

She let his words hang there for a moment. “I understand. You have your real family to focus on.”

“You’re a part of my family, too, kid,” he assured her. “But I owe it to them to stick around. You can still call whenever and you can visit, Lila would love you. But I wanted to tell you I wasn’t going to be coming back with the others because I wanted you to hear it from me,” he explained. “And to ask you a favor.”

“What do you need?” she asked softly.

“Nat might have a bit of a rough time. We lost track of Banner in the battle. He took the quinjet back from ULTRON and then flew off in stealth mode, no one’s been able to get a hold of him since.” 

Millie hadn’t missed the way that Bruce’s training with Natasha had made the two closer and when she really thought about it, the looks the two of them had shared in recent months had been charged with some sort of emotion Millie didn’t know how to explain. Still, the news that not only was Clint not returning to New York but now Bruce was missing in action caused her own chest to tighten.

“What can I do to help?” she questioned.

“You’ve lost more than any one person should, Millie. And you came out of it strong. Help Nat be strong, too.”

“I will miss you,” Millie said softly, voice breaking with sadness.

“Come on, kid, no tears. You’ll see me again. I promise.”

They talked for a few more minutes on the phone, Clint giving her more details of what had transpired in Sokovia before he told her to get some rest and promised that the others would be there soon and assuring her he’d call in a few days to check in with her.

* * *

Not long after speaking to Clint did Happy get the all-clear from Tony, but instead of bringing her right back to the city, they remained at the house for another week. Millie tried to busy herself by reading, training with Happy, and texting Sam.

Finally, Happy brought her to meet the others upstate, in a remote location along the Hudson River. She peered out the window at the row of buildings under construction 

Sam, Steve, Thor, and Tony were waiting outside as the car pulled up.

She threw her arms around Tony immediately before pulling back and punching him as hard as she could in the arm.

“Ow!” he exclaimed.

“I watched you fly beneath the city as it was plummeting back to earth!” she shouted, causing a few workers walking by to turn and stare. “When I saw it explode, I thought…” she trailed off and Tony pulled her back in, hugging her and rubbing her back comfortingly. “I thought I lost all of you.”

“We’re okay, Millie,” Steve assured her before they gestured for her to follow them inside the main building.

“What is this place?”

“It used to be a bunch of warehouses for the company, but as of the other day when we broke ground, it became the official New Avengers Facility,” Tony explained. “We put a rush on the construction of the main building, including living quarters. And we’re working on the labs, training rooms, and everything else you can think of,” he grinned at her. “Spared no expense, especially when rushing the construction on this building.”

“So this is where we are moving.”

“Some of us,” Tony replied almost hesitantly. The men stopped walking and Tony turned to face her, placing his hands on her shoulders. “I know you know about Clint and Bruce. And the truth is, after everything with ULTRON...and maybe the past decade, I need to step back, too. I owe it to myself and definitely to Pepper. I’m going to finish work on the facility and make sure that things are up and running and then I’m going to head back to Manhattan.”

“So I’ll go back with you then?” she asked. “I’m your lab assistant.”

“You’ll be safer here, you can keep training here and be ready in case any ability manifests itself. And you can work in the lab here, on your own projects for Stark Industries. I’ll have you down sometimes when I need your help, and I’ll come up as often as I can to check on what you’re working on -- make sure you’re not using my tech to just build...I don’t know what twenty two year olds are into, Taylor Swift karaoke machines?”

Millie frowned at the idea of Tony leaving her, too. She sniffled a bit and sighed before turning to face the others. “And I assume you’re all leaving, too?”

“Cap will actually be overseeing all of the training. We brought you back some new friends,” Tony assured her.

“Including me,” Sam beamed at her. “An official part of the team now.” Sam pulled her into a sideways hug as she breathed out a sigh of relief.

“Unfortunately, Lady Millie, I will be departing soon as well,” Thor told her. 

“Back to Asgard?” she asked.

He shook his head and gestured for her to keep walking with him. Thor told her about the Infinity Stones and everything he had been shown about them. He explained that one of them had powered Loki’s scepter and that the powerful gems needed to be located since they could prove very dangerous in the wrong hands. He would be searching the cosmos for more information on their whereabouts.

“Mr. Stark,” a familiar, calm British voice interrupted them when they walked into the kitchen.

“JARVIS?” Millie exclaimed excitedly, whipping her head around. She spotted the same purple man she’d seen glimpses of on the news with Happy the previous week. He was standing next to the young woman she’d seen as well.

“Millie, this is Wanda Maximoff and this is Vision.”

Vision greeted her with a polite nod of his head.

“Why do you sound like JARVIS?” she asked softly, stepping closer and examining him.

“ULTRON was trying to create a body for himself. A perfect and unstoppable body made of vibranium,” Steve explained. “We stopped him in Seoul.”

“Mmm, yes, I saw part of that on the news, too.” She punched Steve in the arm similarly to how she had Tony earlier. “That is for fighting on a moving truck. Almost gave me a heart attack.”

Steve gave her a warm look in reply before continuing on. “When we retrieved the body, ULTRON had already embedded the Mind Stone in his forehead and Tony and Bruce had uploaded what was left of JARVIS inside.”

Millie whipped her head around to look at Tony who had the decency to look a bit embarrassed.

“Really, you had just created ULTRON and thought -- well, I might as well also upload some intelligence into an unstoppable vibranium body?!” She took a calming breath. “So it’s JARVIS in a body?”

Vision cleared his throat. “I am not a child of ULTRON, nor am I JARVIS uploaded into a new form,” he informed her. “However, I do retain much of JARVIS’s memory. And I am very pleased to meet you in person, Miss.”

Millie eyed him skeptically for a moment.

“Mr. Stark alerted me that you were arriving today. Mr. Wilson has assisted me in programming some of your favorite music into the entertainment system of your living quarters and Miss. Maximoff was going to assist me in trying to make you some rozata.” Vision attempted to smile at her, but it was clear he was feeling very awkward.

She regarded him for a moment before stepping closer to him. “JARVIS was my friend. He alerted the others when I needed them, tried to provide everything to me to make sure I was happy and safe, and never made me feel pressured to be who I was before HYDRA or who I was trying to become after I was rescued,” she said gently. “You do not have to try to be JARVIS and provide things like entertainment and food for me. Retain his kindness, and we will be fine.”

“I believe I can manage that, Miss.”

“Thank God,” Wanda finally spoke. “Because the rozata was not going well.”

“I think I can help whip something up,” Happy interjected as he walked into the kitchen, having parked the car and dropped Millie’s bags off for her. He immediately set to work in the kitchen, Vision decided to stay and observe. Meanwhile, Tony and Steve were beckoned away to oversee some of the construction on the other buildings. Sam gave Millie a tour and invited Wanda to join them.

“How are you holding up?” Sam asked, not even bothering to sound casual as he led them through the corridors.

“I miss Clint and Bruce. And now Thor and Tony are leaving, too.”

“You’re not losing any of them for good,” Sam reminded her.

“I know,” she admitted. “But it finally felt like I was gaining a sense of stability in New York. And now it is gone again.”

Wanda observed her for a moment and Millie shifted. “I am sorry, I just...your grief is very strong.”

“So is yours,” Millie replied, causing the other woman to gape at her for a moment.

“Yes,” Wanda informed her. “I lost both of my parents a long time ago, and now I have lost my home.”

“And your brother.”

“How did you know?”

Millie blinked. She actually wasn’t sure how she knew. She remembered that the Maximoffs had been identified as the twins the team had encountered on their initial trip to Sokovia, maybe she’d just assumed because the other young man hadn’t been there in the kitchen to greet them. “Clint told me,” she replied hastily, not even sure why she was lying.

“Clint also told me about you,” Wanda stated, seemingly accepting Millie’s explanation. “When we were on our way back and I was anxious about coming to America. He told me about you, at all you suffered at the hands of HYDRA.” The other young woman paused for a moment. “I am sure you must think my brother and I to be monsters to actually volunteer…”

Millie shook her head and looked at Wanda. “You lost your parents, yes? Your lives were filled with hardship and your country in a state of unrest. You were young and you wanted to make a difference, HYDRA preyed on that. It is very easy for incredible men with power to earn the trust of a young person who has lost everything,” Millie reasoned. “After all, that is how I wound up with the Avengers. It is not your fault that the men you encountered were HYDRA. Had you not volunteered, they might have resorted to taking people from their homes instead.” When Wanda just dipped her head, Millie sighed. “You are very strong. I watched their methods kill many. And you are stronger to have rejected them and also ULTRON to fight alongside my friends and do the right thing.”

Sam glanced between the two of them before smiling. “I had a feeling you two might get along. It’s a good thing, too, because we put your rooms in the same hall. And I’m three doors over, if either of you ever want to talk.”

“Planning a support group for the team, Sam?” Millie questioned with a small smile.

“You know me,” he replied with a grin.

* * *

Happy took his leave of the Avengers Facility after a couple of days, citing his need to get back to his duties at Stark Industries. Millie gave him a tearful hug goodbye and he gifted her a pair of boxing gloves and a few books from his personal library before departing. 

Tony slowly began to spend more time in the city as well, traveling back and forth to oversee construction.

Over the next few weeks, Millie watched all of the experts work. Maria Hill had officially resigned from Stark Industries but was coordinating with Steve to have many of SHIELD’s old assets and some of its trainees assigned to the facility. Helen was also there -- not only to recover from her time with ULTRON and run full physical exams on the team but to train the medical staff that would be working there part-time in the event of “any injury incurred while Avenging.” Dr. Eric Selvig, renowned astrophysicist was also on site, working with Thor as he looked into tracking down the Infinity Stones.

Eventually, though, life settled down. The facility was officially opened in record time and soon it was time for even Tony and Thor to take their leave. 

“Are you ready for training today?” Natasha asked one morning, walking into the kitchen as Millie poured herself a bowl of cereal.

“I would understand if you wanted to focus on training the others instead,” Millie replied. “The ones with actual abilities.”

Natasha gave her a look that implied Millie was being ridiculous as she poured herself some coffee. “You’ll train with the team.”

The two women sat there in silence for a moment before Millie turned to her. “I miss them, too, you know. Clint and Bruce.”

Natasha averted her gaze.

“If there is anything I can do, Natasha.”

“Like what?” the redhead practically snapped.

“Be a friend. Like you have been to me since the moment you rescued me.” 

Natasha sighed, her expression softening. “You’re a very good friend, Millie. I know it’s not easy for you either. I appreciate your concern, but it’s something I’d rather not focus on right now. I’m just not ready. I know Clint had to focus on Laura and the kids, and Bruce made his choices.”

“Sam says we can’t control what happens, just how we react to it. I told Bruce that once,” Millie told her softly, putting her hand over the other woman’s. “But I should have also told him something else Sam always says -- that we cannot get through things alone.”

Natasha smiled sadly at her and nodded. “Finish your breakfast and meet me in the training room. We should warm up before the others show up.”

* * *

Tony sent up all of the things from her room in the tower and one day while she was going through the boxes, she came across the framed photos of Bucky Barnes and the leather jacket from the back of her closet. She contemplated giving the photos to Steve but ultimately put them up on her bookshelf before hanging the jacket up in the back of her new wardrobe.

Training under Steve and Natasha took a lot out of her. With Rhodey, Sam, Vision, and Wanda at her side, she found herself getting frustrated. She didn’t have abilities or a suit and when they ran drills together, she felt guilty for slowing them down. None of them ever seemed to fault her as much as she faulted herself though.

Sam seemed to pick up on her distress though and eventually began working more closely with her and keeping his own training to the ground whenever he could. Natasha continued to train her in hand to hand combat while Rhodey helped with her firearms training.

What she was most grateful for was the chance to work more with Steve. He was a natural born leader, and while he seemed acutely aware of her limitations, he knew when to adapt her own training to differ from the others and when to push her. 

It bonded all of them together.

Still, on occasion, Steve and Sam would disappear for a few days at a time, neither of them explaining why. Rhodey didn’t reside at the facility, having agreed to continue to serve as a liaison between the Avengers and the government, granted now on the other side of the table, and frequently traveled down to Washington D.C. or Manhattan for meetings.

That meant that Vision and Wanda were Millie’s most constant companions. Millie noted that the two of them were very close but never once made her feel like a third wheel. In fact, Wanda seemed to love the ability to spend time with her. While they never spoke of the similarities of their circumstances, it enabled them to relax around each other in a way they typically didn’t allow themselves to. And Vision seemed to do his best to make sure that they were comfortable, even if he was still getting a grasp for how to interact with humans.

In the time that passed, Tony continuously phoned to check in on Millie’s work in the lab where she was helping oversee upgrades to gear for the team and Clint video chatted her often, showing off baby Nate and checking in on both her and Wanda for how they were adjusting. In July, Millie attempted to convince both men to visit for the Fourth, to celebrate Steve’s birthday but Clint politely declined, already having other plans.

Which is why Millie found herself in the kitchen with Vision, instructing him on how to make a proper birthday cake, Wanda was watching along, correcting him when he reached for the wrong ingredient.

“What’s all this?” Steve asked, walking into the kitchen on his way back from a run with Sam, staring at Vision who appeared to be covered in flour.

“You were not supposed to see,” Wanda lamented and the very same moment Vision exclaimed “Happy birthday!”

Steve tilted his head in Millie’s direction and she gave him a shrug, continuing to mix the batter in the large bowl in front of her. “You guys didn’t have to do all of this for me.”

“It is not just for you. It is our first Fourth of July,” Millie told him. “None of us have celebrated American Independence Day. And seeing as how all three of us are now independent in some shape or form, we decided to celebrate. I am also going to make pies. Happy said he would visit and make cheeseburgers, Tony is coming with fireworks.”

Steve smiled at her and nodded. “Well, I guess I can’t say no to that,” he leaned against the counter. “What kind of pie?”

“Apple. It is the most American one, yes?” Wanda questioned.

“Can I help?” Steve offered just as Sam walked in, panting and clearly more winded from the run than Steve was. 

“You can wash, peel, and slice the apples,” Millie told him. “I am going to get the cake in the oven. Wanda, will you help Vision get cleaned up? And then when you get back we can make the potato salad.”

Sam poured himself a glass of water and promised he’d be back to help after his shower.

“You really didn’t have to do this, Millie.”

“What makes you think it was my idea?” she questioned, feeling Steve’s gaze on her. “You only turn 97 once, though, perhaps technically you will twice. 97 chronologically, but also one day physically.” Steve chuckled as he began washing and peeling the apples she’d set aside for the pie. “You gave me a home, I wanted to give you something, too. Besides, everyone is still sad. A celebration will help.”

“Sad?”

“Natasha misses Bruce and Clint. Wanda misses Pietro. Vision is sad that he cannot help Wanda as much as he’d like. You and Sam come back from your mysterious journeys seeming disappointed. Rhodey is not sad, but he is...tired.”

“How do you know all that?” Steve asked her gently.

“I suppose I am just observant.”

“And what about you? Are you sad?”

Millie chewed on her lip as she scooped the cake batter into the pans she’d prepared and slid them into the oven. “I have found that talking to Sam and to Wanda helps. I still miss my family and have trouble sleeping. But I know that sadness will not bring anyone back or undo anything that has happened. So, I choose to focus on other things. Like cake and my work in the lab.”

She could feel his gaze still on her and she shook her head before picking up one of the apples he’d peeled and slicing it. “Like this, yes? For the filling,” she demonstrated the way she wanted the apples sliced before going to the refrigerator to get out the pie crust she’d left chilling there.

The two of them worked in silence until the others came back to help.

Later that night, the facility was loud and full of jovial laughter and chatter. Tony had arrived and attempted to cram 97 candles into the cake Millie and Vision had made before she swatted him away from it. Everyone ate and talked and then gathered at the windows for the fireworks that Tony arranged for the evening. 

“Why don’t we watch them from outside?” Happy questioned.

“The noise,” Millie told him softly. “Many of them were born or served in war torn countries, Tony and I thought it best to watch from inside,” she explained.

As the party wore on, Millie walked over to Steve. “I have a gift for you, come by later.” If he wanted to ask why she wanted to give it to him privately, he didn’t have the chance to ask before Natasha and Sam pulled him into a conversation.

“You did good here, kid,” Tony remarked, walking up beside her as she stood off to the side and surveyed the party.

“Everyone helped.”

“But the party was your idea. And it’s good to have people together again,” he told her. “Seems like you’ve been taking care of this band of misfits.”

She smiled a bit sadly as she looked at the others. “Maria once told me that just because I did not have any powers, did not mean that I could not be part of the team and help bind everyone together. It made me realize that all of us are looking for a home in our own way. They are not misfits, Tony. Not here. They are home here.” She looked up at him, “It is good to have you home, old man.”

Tony laughed, putting an arm over her shoulder and giving her a sideways hug. He sipped his drink and nodded. “It’s good to be here. Pepper was asking after you, wants you to come down for dinner sometime. You could work in the lab with me like old times.”

“I would like that,” she nodded.

Tony glanced over at Vision and Wanda talking quietly in the corner. “Is that a thing? Is that even a scientifically possible thing? Should I be concerned that it is a thing?”

“Yes. I don’t know. Mind your own business,” she replied, answering all of his respective questions in order before Rhodey and Happy called them over to rejoin the festivities.

* * *

Later that night, there was a knock at her door and she found Steve on the other side. He looked tired but content, and she was glad. It was part of the reason she’d orchestrated the whole get together.

“You didn’t have to get me anything,” he told her as she gestured for him to come inside. “I know that party was all you.”

“I told you, that was a Fourth of July party. We just made you a cake.”

“It was exactly the kind of birthday party I wanted, not having to be the center of attention, but all of our friends together.” He paused. “Well, not all.”

Millie smiled, beckoning for him to sit on the couch. “You miss the others, too, I think.”

“I do,” he admitted. “And I know that Sam and I have been away a lot lately, but that’s going to change. I realize that for you and Wanda, who are just trying to get used to life here that not having a lot of constants might be hard.” He leaned back on the sofa, taking a deep breath. “Sam and I have been looking for Bucky for...a long time. I was convinced he was the one sending signals on where to find HYDRA bases, but now that they’re gone I don’t have a lot of leads on where to find him. I don’t even know if it definitely was him and even if it was -- maybe there’s a reason he hasn’t reached out directly.”

Steve glanced around her room, noticing the photos of Bucky on her bookshelf. “You held onto those?”

“I have to tell you something,” she confessed. When he looked at her expectantly, she sighed. “I think it was Bucky who saved me that night. I don’t remember escaping, but every now and then when I dream and have nightmares about being back there, there are blue eyes pulling me away from the death and decay and I realized -- I think they are those eyes.” Millie gestured over to the photos. “And…” she trailed off, wondering if she should tell him about the other dreams she’d had -- dreams of stalking HYDRA bases or wandering the streets of a country she didn’t know buying plums and keeping her face hidden. She knew it would sound insane to say that was any proof Bucky was alive somewhere, but in the dreams she had thoughts about things she couldn’t possibly know or explain. 

Millie chewed on her lip for a minute before standing up and walking to her closet. She pulled out the leather jacket and walked over to Steve. “I think this is his jacket. And I think you should have it. To remember that he is out there and you will find him again.”

“Millie, how can you be sure?” Steve asked, taking the jacket in his hands and staring at it for a moment.

“I do not know how to explain it without sounding crazy.” When Steve just looked at her imploringly, she sighed. “Sometimes, I have other dreams…” she started and then squeezed her eyes shut. “The only base you found killed HYDRA operatives in was when you found me. Everywhere else they were just restrained, at most a shot in the knee to keep them from running fast. All shot with the precision of a sniper. The first time you got a signal after you found me, there was snow on the ground. The base in Novi Grad was high up and protected by a force field. When you took it, you took your motorcycle and there were two jeeps on the ground.”

“How do you know all that?” Steve asked, gaping at her.

“I do not know, but I think it is because he did,” she admitted. “He called you Stevie. And you used to stuff newspaper in your shoes.”

Steve’s expression softened, he looked back down at the jacket and then back at her. “He’s alive, he’s out there,” he stated. “And he remembers me. Do you know where…” he trailed off, jumping to his feet and placing the jacket down. “I have to talk to Sam.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, trying to update once a day! We're coming up to a part that I feel really excited about BUT first, how is Millie getting along after telling Steve about her Bucky dreams?

Millie almost immediately regretted telling Steve about the dreams she’d been having. Despite the fact that he’d told her he and Sam would be home more, her inexplicable claim that Bucky was out there seemed to renew his hope and he doubled his efforts.

Over the next few months, Steve was away nearly more often than he was at the facility. Natasha had taken over most of their training and Sam frequently went with Steve. When Steve was at the facility, he seemed distracted and exhausted and typically only dropped by to question if she’d had any other dreams. When she told him no, he shuffled off to do his own research and chase down his own leads.

Of course, she knew he was only interested in dreams that might give him a clue as to his friend's whereabouts. So she didn’t mention the nightmares that seemed to be increasing on a steady basis. On more than one occasion, she woke up in a cold sweat before moving to sleep on the floor or to Wanda shaking her awake. Normally, she would have messaged Sam about it, but since he seemed to be returning just as exhausted as Steve, she decided not to bother him about it. 

Even one day when he’d hobbled into the lab with his flight pack broken, muttering something about a tic tac, she didn’t mention it. Just went to work checking him over for bumps and bruises before promising to repair his wings as quickly as possible.

She focused on working in the lab and asked Tony to help her enroll in more online classes. She worked into the early morning hours most nights in hopes of avoiding sleep and the nightmares that came with it, typically, if she could work herself to the point of pure exhaustion, she’d be gifted an entire Sunday of dreamless sleep. 

It wasn’t sustainable though. 

The exhaustion left her feeling emotionally raw as well and on multiple occasions, she found herself sitting on the floor of the lab, hyperventilating and feeling like her heart was going to pound out of her chest. She tried to hide it, to deal with them on her own, but on one occasion, Vision found her that way when he was notifying her that dinner was being served.

And everyone else at the facility seemed to pick up on the fact that something was wrong and it seemed they shared their concerns, evidenced by the week that Tony and Happy drove up and stayed for a week. During those days, Millie opted to pretend to go to her room to sleep at a normal hour, but stayed up and worked quietly at the desk in her quarters.

“Take a break,” Tony said to her one afternoon during his stay. He was leaning against the door to the lab with his arms crossed in front of his chest.

“I will stop in a bit for lunch.”

“It’s 3:30 in the afternoon,” he stated flatly. She looked up at him and blinked a few times before he walked further into the room, dragging a chair over to her work station. “What’s going on, kid?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. I am fine.”

“Millie.”

“I have been having nightmares again,” she admitted. “So I do not like to sleep.”

“Have you talked to anyone about them?” he asked. “Wilson? Barton?”

She shook her head. “I do not wish to bother Clint while he is with his family and Sam has been...busy.”

“Do you want to talk to me about them?” he asked, sighing when she just spared him a glance. “You know, after the Battle of New York, I had nightmares, too. And anxiety attacks. It almost destroyed my relationship with Pepper because I didn’t try to deal with it. I buried myself in distractions.” Sighing, Tony put a hand on her shoulder. “Millie, if you’re still having nightmares about your family, you can talk to me or any of us about them. We can help, or find someone who can.”

“The dreams are not about my family,” she told him flatly. Tony waited patiently and she turned to look at him. “Why is the team training me to fight? I don’t have any powers that I need to learn to control like the others.”

“But you could. Helen’s tests…”

“Is that why I am allowed to stay here? In hopes that one day I will be more useful.”

Tony’s expression flickered to one of hurt, as if he felt betrayed that she would even assume that. “You know that it’s not. And you are plenty useful -- your work here in the lab has been great. I don’t have powers and I gave up the suit, I’d like to think I’m still useful.”

Millie stared back at her computer screen for a moment. “I do not think everyone would agree.” She sighed. “I think that something has been happening to me since I was rescued. I was never sure so I never wanted to say. I think whatever HYDRA was hoping to discover or do to me…” she trailed off and frowned. “Bucky Barnes rescued me that night, I am certain. And since then I have had dreams where I think and know things I could not possibly know on my own. Dreams with thoughts that I have suspected are his.”

“Like some sort of psychic link?” Tony questioned.

“Yes,” she nodded. 

“Your mother was telepathic, it’s not a hard stretch to imagine you might have some sort of psychic ability, too. If you need help shutting it out, we can talk to Helen. Is that what’s keeping you awake?” Tony asked. He knew enough about the career of the Winter Soldier to know that if Millie was tapping into his mind somehow, that it could be traumatic.

“No,” she insisted. “But I told Steve about it. A few months ago, on his birthday.”

“What did Steve say?”

“He renewed his efforts to find his friend. Now when he comes home, he asks if I have any new information and seems frustrated when I do not.”

“I’m sure that’s not the case, Millie.”

“If this is really happening, if it is part of the abilities Helen said would manifest...I do not want the team to see it as my only value.”

“We know that it isn’t,” Tony insisted, pulling her into a hug.

“Please don’t tell the others. I don’t want them to think...I don’t even know how to make the dreams happen and I do not know if I am ready to try...or be forced to try.”

“I’ll never let that happen.”

“You left,” she said sadly. It wasn’t accusatory. She understood all of the reasons that he had to step back from the team. “Bruce and Clint and Thor. I am trying to be strong, especially around Vision and Wanda. But it is difficult.”

Tony sighed, pulling back and rubbing a hand over his face. “We put a lot of pressure on you, huh?” he nodded before his expression became resolute. “I’m going to help take care of this, I promise. And we don’t have to tell the others about your dreams if you don’t want to yet.”

“I have been trying to have them again, so I can help Steve…”

“It’s not your job to be a homing beacon so he can find his long lost friend, kid,” Tony informed her. “Come on, let’s get you some food. And you need some rest. If you have a bad dream, I’ll be here.”

* * *

Over the following days, Tony did his best to keep Millie happy and distracted and it seemed to work. The two would talk and work together in the lab and then he’d put on a movie for the rest of the team in the common room until she fell asleep on the sofa. Surrounded by her friends and with a sense of normalcy around her, she managed to sleep peacefully for a while.

But when Tony went back to Manhattan, things started to fall apart again. 

Millie was 99% sure the team was talking about her because Clint and Tony each seemed to call her a lot more often and Natasha gave her special attention during training.

Still, as October wore into November, she was wearing herself ragged once again.

“You’re a twenty two year old kid, you don’t have to keep carrying the world on your shoulders,” Clint told her one day, smiling up at her from her laptop. He was bouncing baby Nate on his knee. 

“Twenty three,” she corrected as she jotted down notes in her notebook, pausing to make a silly face at the baby.

“What?”

“My birthday was last month. I am twenty three.”

“You never said anything, did you guys celebrate?”

“I never said anything to anyone here either,” she shrugged. “I do not like to celebrate my birthday.” When Clint looked at her, she sighed, placing her pen down. “When I turned twenty-two, Luka wanted to get me something for my birthday. He was not supposed to go into town anymore, because we did not want anyone realizing the way he was aging due to his abilities. But he snuck into town anyway to buy me a present. Neighbors saw him and began to talk, some asked me who he was and we tried lying and saying it was our older cousin. But they all began realizing they had not seen Luka in a long time, that he stopped attending school. More and more enhanced people were turning up all over the world and the neighbors had always felt there was something...unusual about our family. It started the rumors. It is why HYDRA came for us, I am sure.”

Clint frowned. “It’s not your fault.”

“He was just a sweet boy who wanted to get me a gift for taking such good care of him,” Millie said tearfully.

“Your neighbors would have become suspicious eventually, Millie. You can’t blame yourself.”

Sniffling, she looked away from the camera on her laptop and sighed. “I know. But I do not like celebrating my birthday anyway.”

“I understand,” Clint said gently. He paused for a moment. “Listen, Stark and I were talking the other day.”

She snapped her gaze back to him. “What did Tony say?”

Clint held up a hand defensively, the other still wrapped around Nate who cooed and giggled at the camera. “I knew you’d been having a rough time and he...told me what happened with Steve.”

“He promised he would not say anything.”

“Millie. C’mon, it’s me. You know me. I’m the last person that’s going to put pressure on you if you wind up being enhanced,” he told her. Millie knew that he was right. Clint had become almost parental to her from the moment she’d arrived at the tower, looking after her and focusing on her wellbeing above all else. “I was just thinking, maybe you just need a break -- from the lab, from the facility. You could come out to the farm. If you want.”

Millie sighed and shook her head. “I am fine,” she told him. When he looked at her skeptically, she nodded. “I promise.”

“You’d better not be lying. Nate can’t have a lying Aunt Millie.”

“Aunt?” she questioned.

“Of course,” he offered her a lopsided grin. “Just promise me you’ll take care of yourself. If not, I will come there and personally put you on a jet to the farm.”

“I promise, Clint,” she told him with a nod. And the truth was, she meant it when she said it. But sometimes even plans with the best intentions don’t work out.

* * *

Steve sat at the helm of the quinjet, programming in the flight path to take him and Sam back to New York. Leads had carried them to Kiev this time, but they’d turned up empty after days of searching. 

Ever since Millie had told him about her dreams, the hope of finding Bucky that he’d felt fading renewed itself. After Sokovia, when Clint and Tony both took steps back to focus on their personal lives, he knew that he would never have the normal, traditional, stable lifestyle they were both looking for. But he thought maybe if he could just get a bit of his old life back, that would be enough.

“Wheels up in five,” he announced as he heard Sam step onto the jet. “Back in time for Thanksgiving.”

“When were you going to tell me?” Sam asked him sharply.

“Tell you what?” Steve turned in his chair and looked at his friend in confusion.

“That Millie was the one who told you Barnes was alive? That she’s been experiencing some sort of psychic link that she confided in you about?”

“How do you know?”

“I just got off the phone with Natasha. She wanted to know when I’d be home to talk to Millie because she just fainted in the middle of training.”

“She did  _ what?” _ Steve asked, alarmed.

“You know, over the summer, I thought we were going to slow down, and when you decided to pick things back up again, I figured you just needed to hold out hope. But this isn’t cool, Captain.”

“Wait, what does our search have to do with Millie passing out?”

“She wasn’t just telling you Bucky was alive, Cap. She was telling you that her first abilities were making themselves known,” Sam stated flatly. “Something we all know she’s been afraid of ever since Dr. Cho told her it was possible.”

Steve frowned, rubbing his hands over his face. “Damn.”

“Yeah. Did you ask her how she was feeling about it? Make sure she wasn’t experiencing any sort of side effects? Or did we just jump on the next jet out of town? Have you talked to her since?”

“I talk to her when we’re home,” Steve said defensively before he thought about it for a moment and his face fell. “Normally to ask if she had any more dreams about Buck.”

“Well, she hasn’t, but she’s been having a lot of nightmares while we’ve been gone. Barely sleeping and taking care of herself.”

“Why wouldn’t she tell us that?” Steve asked gently.

“Maybe she didn’t think we’d care unless it had to do with finding Barnes.”

Frowning, Steve leaned forward, covering his face with his hands as he realized just how unfairly he’d been treating Millie over the recent months. She’d gone out of her way to give him the gift of hope by exposing something about herself that undoubtedly made her feel vulnerable, and he’d just taken the information she’d provided and became laser-focused on finding Bucky again, leaving the team behind -- at a time where most of the friends that Millie had made since she’d come into her lives had also gone.

Sam sighed. “Cap, I know you didn’t mean it. I know what finding Barnes would mean to you. But at this point, if he’s still on the run with HYDRA officially, he might not be ready for our help. But there is someone who does need your help who’s sitting right at home. I think if you focused on that a bit, maybe it would help you move forward, too.”

Steve considered all of this before nodding. “Let’s go home then,” he said resolutely. “I owe someone an apology.”

* * *

Passing out during training had admittedly been an embarrassing low. She woke up to a very concerned Natasha looking down at her. After she was helped to her feet, Natasha made sure that Vision and Wanda were tasked with looking after Millie while she disappeared.

It took most of the day to convince them that she was fine, and even then she knew that they were watching her like hawks.

She took her dinner to the lab that night, despite Natasha’s look of disapproval. She was picking at her food and looking over test results when someone knocked on the doorframe.

“I told you, I am fine,” she started as she turned around. “Steve,” she blinked. “I did not know that you were back.”

“Just got back with Sam a few minutes ago.”

“Your trip was unsuccessful then?” she questioned before sighing. “I did not have any more dreams about Sergeant Barnes,” she informed him before turning back to her computer display.

“Millie,” Steve said gently, crossing the room and crouching down beside her chair. “I owe you an apology.” He waited for her to turn to look at him and sighed. “When you told me about your dreams, I got tunnel vision about finding Buck. And what I should have done was make sure that you were alright.”

“I am fine,” she insisted. “I do not know what causes them or how to control them or else I would help you more.”

Steve shook his head, a pained expression on his face. “No.  _ I _ should have been helping  _ you _ . I don’t know if these dreams of yours are part of your given abilities or a side effect of something HYDRA did to you, but I can only guess that the reason you waited to talk about them was that you were struggling to make sense of them and what it meant for you. And then I ignored that and put pressure on you over something that was never your problem to begin with.” He reached out and took her hands. “I know a lot has changed for the team so far and how things are changing for you and I went and upended things again.”

“You were looking for your friend,” she rationalized for him.

“I have a friend. Right here in front of me. One who opened up to me about something important. And I took advantage of her and I’m so sorry,” Steve squeezed her hands and looked into her eyes. “Sam and I aren’t going anywhere. If Bucky wants to be found, we know he knows how to get in touch with us.”

Millie knew that suspending his search for his old friend was hard for Steve, so she squeezed his hands in return and smiled softly at him. “You are a good friend, Steve,” she assured him. “To Bucky and to me. But I am relieved you will be home for at least a while.”

He smiled warmly back at her. “The others mentioned you’ve been having nightmares again. Sam and I were thinking you and he should schedule a regular time to talk, maybe work through some of it. And you can talk to me any time you want, too. I promise to stop being such a dolt.”

She laughed softly and nodded at him. “I would like that.”

“Have you been experiencing anything else? Connections with other people or anything out of the ordinary? We could look into ways to block it if it’s something that could bother you.”

“Block it?” she questioned. “But what if one day it  _ does _ help you find him?”

“If it were taking a toll on you, I’d take my chances. I’m sorry it didn’t seem that way before, Millie.”

“But I  _ do _ want to be helpful. I spent the entire time you all were fighting ULTRON feeling useless. I do not want to always feel that way with you.”

“Hey, none of that,” he told her. “You are not useless. I know for a fact that you’ve been doing everything you can to help the team, from upgrading Sam and Rhodey’s gear to making sure that Wanda and Natasha are doing okay emotionally. And that’s saying something, given the fact that you’ve had to adjust to more than you ever should have had to this past year. And thanks to you, and how much all of us care about you, Sam reminded me to pull my head out of my ass.”

The corner of her lips tugged up into a smile. “Captain,” she gasped with feigned shock. “Language!”

Steve chuckled and looked at her. “Are we okay?"

“Are you really home for a while?” she asked softly. When he nodded, Millie let out a sigh of relief she felt like she’d been holding in for months and launched herself towards him, pulling him into a hug. 

Steve let out a playful  _ oof _ before returning the hug. “Maybe you can help me with something -- nothing dream related,” he told her as she pulled away and settled back into her chair. He reached into his pocket and fished out a small compass. When he opened it, a beautiful woman in a black and white photograph stared back up at her. “I’ve had this since before I went under the ice and, after Sokovia, it stopped pointing North. Seeing as I’ve made a habit of losing my way lately, do you think you can help me fix it?”

Millie examined the compass for a moment. “It seems to have become demagnetized. I can fix this for you tonight.”

“You’ll get some rest tonight, we can take care of it tomorrow,” Steve said in a tone that suggested it wasn’t up for debate. He stood up straight and held his hand out to her. “Sam insisted that we bring back ice cream. He wants to see if Vision can get brain freeze.”

Millie couldn’t help but laugh at that, so she took his hand and allowed him to lead her out of the lab. 

“Vision does not eat,” Millie pointed out as they walked towards the elevator.

“I know, but he finally stopped being pissed at me and then got so excited at the idea, I didn’t have the heart to tell him.”

* * *

In the days after Sam and Steve seemed to return for good, Millie felt herself finally relax. She no longer felt the pressure of wanting to have a dream about Bucky simply to aid her friend and she allowed herself a sense of stability, which quickly gave way to routine. 

Every morning, she woke up early to make coffee for the others and review reports she left running in the lab overnight. Currently, she was looking for ways to integrate Sam’s flight pack with some new upgrades, including making it more compact and able to implement at a moment’s notice. Any time she found something interesting, she sent the results to Tony. 

Then she would get ready for training. Natasha and Steve had developed new tactical maneuvers that required her. When she questioned why, still convinced she wouldn’t develop any skills useful on a mission, Natasha pointed out that her skills as an engineer and with computers could make her invaluable now that Tony was out of action and Natasha would have to take point on offensive maneuvers and anything that required sharpshooting. It took actually implementing some of the drills they’d drawn up for her to realize, with immense joy, that she’d gotten much more agile and her climbing abilities had greatly improved. Even her target training was going better, with help from Rhodey and the occasional tip from Clint who would call her regularly to check in.

Sam met with her every morning after training to talk to her about how she was doing, he would keep her company in the lab, providing feedback about her work on the wings while she talked to him about her dreams, her issues sleeping, and anything else that was on her mind. He convinced her to journal again, something she had stopped doing shortly after the events of Sokovia.

Steve set a strict time for her to finish working every night, with a few exceptions made for emergencies -- like the time Rhodey’s suit malfunctioned during a training drill and they had to make sure it was fixed the following morning for his trip down to Washington D.C.

Steve also insisted that she take regular breaks for work and spent her weekends out of the lab whenever possible. Sometimes she studied for her online courses and other times the team coordinated activities or things to work on. Wanda frequently spent time with her, the two of them reading or watching a movie together and essentially attempting to have girl time. They eventually convinced Natasha to join them as well.

“You want us to what?” Millie asked one day over lunch, staring at Steve, Rhodey. and Vision like they’d all sprouted second heads.

“Take elocution lessons,” Vision repeated. 

“Following the scrutiny that we've all faced following Sokovia, the world is afraid and the government is terrified,” Rhodey explained. “The combination of Wanda’s incredibly strong powers that were on display in Seoul and Novi Grad and Millie’s unknown powers means the idea of the two of you would already strike fear into the hearts of the entire Department of State, Department of Defense, hell, even the Department of the Interior. Given that Millie is already living under a fabricated identity, we should do our best to try to limit highlighting how different the two of you appear, should any of our friends from the Pentagon come visit the facility.”

“That is racist,” Wanda replied flatly. “How does my having abilities get worse by my also being from Sokovia?” she demanded.

“No, you’re right,” Rhodey admitted. “It’s racist.” He sighed and sat down at the table so he could be eye level with both of them. “I know it sucks. But it’s a useful skill to master.”

“He’s right,” Natasha chimed in as she walked into the kitchen, going straight to the refrigerator to retrieve something to eat. “Honing your accents can be useful in the field. Not everything that you’re ever going to have to do is going to be as simple as waving your hands around or playing with a screwdriver,” she pointed out. “There are times you’re going to have to blend into a crowd. It’s something that I had to master.”

When Millie and Wanda looked at her like she’d betrayed them, she huffed, cursing softly at them in Russian until they both cracked a smile. 

“I suppose,” Wanda said. “What does it entail?”

“I will be instructing you,” Vision informed them, his prim and proper accent crisply annunciating his syllables.

“You want us to sound British?” Wanda asked incredulously.

“I am equipped to help you assimilate a number of regional accents, dialects, colloquialisms, and jargon,” Vision practically huffed, causing Millie to laugh.

* * *

When the week of Thanksgiving rolled around a few days later, Millie stood in the kitchen staring at her tablet trying to figure out how to go about preparing a meal for everyone. It seemed that everyone there had ideas about what a proper Thanksgiving should entail.

“The stuffing is crucial,” Steve informed her. “And no cranberry sauce from a can.”

“It’s great from a can,” Sam argued. “But it’s only stuffing if it’s cooked inside the turkey. When it’s in a casserole dish, it’s  _ dressing _ . I definitely prefer stuffing.”

“If you cook it inside the turkey and it’s not cooked to the right temperature, you will all succumb to food poisoning and die,” Vision pointed out flatly.

“I heard that you can deep fry a turkey,” Rhodey added. “I’d eat that.”

Wanda had taken the tablet and was scrolling through recipes herself. “What is a turducken...how do they get the birds inside of one another?” Her eyes widened as though she were picturing various methods of doing so. Millie was pretty sure one method she was imagining was forcing the birds to cannibalize each other.

Millie practically growled at all of them before a throat cleared behind them, causing them to jump. “Maybe I can help.”

“Happy!” Millie exclaimed, throwing her arms around him. “Thank goodness, please save me from these maniacs,” she laughed.

“See, now this is backwards, usually I get the adoration and Happy gets ignored,” Tony complained playfully as he walked into the room, Pepper at his side.

“Why didn’t you all let me know that you were coming?” Millie asked.

“We thought it would be a nice surprise,” Pepper smiled warmly at her, pulling her into a hug.

“That and I figured we should come with Happy and some groceries. I’ve seen the amount Rogers, Wilson, and Rhodey eat and witnessed Vision and Wanda try to cook. I figured you’d be in over your head,” Tony added, holding his arms out expectantly.

The rest of the team greeted their friends and soon they moved into the living room to talk and catch up. 

True to his word, Tony had ordered a massive amount of groceries to the facility and Happy had come prepared with a full menu planned. There were not just one but two large turkeys. One to be cooked traditionally with stuffing and the other to be deep-fried. He also planned on preparing a separate tray of dressing on the side, macaroni and cheese, sweet potato casserole, green beans, butternut squash soup, and some sort of dish involving Brussels sprouts and bacon. But the most baffling part was that he was refusing Millie’s help. “Tony hired some folks to come in and take care of the heavy lifting, I’m just overseeing things,” Happy explained.

“Can I at least make some pies?” Millie asked, only for Sam to inject himself into the conversation.

“Oh, her apple pie? Like from Fourth of July. Yes, please. I want it.”

Millie laughed, shoving Sam in the shoulder. “That was a team effort with Steve, I would need his help.”

“I would be honored to help, ma’am,” Steve teased.

“Why thank you ever so much, Captain. I’d appreciate it,” Millie replied, annunciating her words and elongating her vowels the way Vision had been instructing her. 

“What was that with the voice, what’s going on?” Tony demanded in confusion.

Natasha walked by and gave him a light slap on the back of their head. “She and Wanda have been working on their elocution. Given that people are already a little antsy when it comes to Wanda and Millie’s technically supposed to be a...Banner. Wanted to equip them with better ways to blend in.”

Tony considered this for a moment, scrunching his nose a bit. “I go away for a few months and suddenly everything is topsy turvy. People being more excited to see Happy than me, Millie and Wanda talking like they just got out of some sort of charm school, what else has happened? Do people think Rogers is cool now?”

“Okay, Tony hasn’t eaten since this morning and he’s cranky. Let’s get you something to eat,” Pepper grinned, tugging him into the kitchen. “Or a juice box.”

* * *

By the end of the day on Thanksgiving, everyone wound up spread out around the living room, lazily watching the football game on television or in some cases, already curled up asleep on the sofa. 

“Turkey and football. Tires them out every time,” Happy grinned before making his way to the kitchen to oversee the staff’s clean up.

“All the red wine must have helped, too,” Millie pointed out before standing up herself.

“Where are you off to?” Steve questioned, the most alert of the bunch.

“I left some scans running on a prototype for Sam downstairs in the lab. I was going to check in on them.”

“It’s Thanksgiving.”

“Yes, and I am very thankful for my work in the lab,” she quipped. “Come keep me company if you want to make sure I don’t work too hard.”

Steve sat silently while Millie reviewed her test results, scans on the alloy she was working with proved promising. He smiled softly as he watched her excitedly murmuring to herself and then jot down some notes on a whiteboard near her desk.

“I’ve been meaning to thank you for helping with this,” he held up the compass he kept in his pocket. “It’s been working like a charm since you fixed it.”

Millie smiled up at him. “I could tell it was important to you. Who is she?”

Steve got a faraway look in his eyes for a moment before he replied. “Peggy Carter.”

“Tell me about her.”

And so he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters 8-11 will contain the events of Captain America: Civil War and you know what that means!!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, so sorry for delays. Real life got in the way. Here is chapter 8 - which includes the start of Civil War!

December came and went like a blur. At the Avengers Facility, the team elected to celebrate the holidays with Secret Santa and Millie was glad to get Sam. She’d already upgraded his existing flight pack with new features, but she was finally able to present him with a prototype for a new one.

“What is this?” he asked, holding up a pair of red-tinted goggles.

“Wearable tech,” she quipped back before explaining that the glasses were powered with a full interface, similar to the ones that helped operate Tony and Rhodey’s suits. They could summon a compact and portable box that expanded into a full set of wings, this time made from a lighter and more agile material. Sam was delighted and immediately cursed the snowstorm outside that prevented him from taking his new gift out for a test run.

“I’m going to want to run a few test flights with them before you take them into the field,” she reminded him.

Everyone seemed equally relieved that Wanda had gotten Vision because no one else would have been able to think of anything to give to the extremely powerful Android with lacking people skills. However, when he unwrapped the box containing a black knit sweater, he seemed as delighted as Vision ever seemed to get. “What is this?” he questioned, pulling another item out of the box. He lifted up the silver chain with two stamped tags on them that looked like dog tags. 

“They are made from the material of the cradle. With the initials of everyone on the team who was there on that one, and your name on this one. It is important to remember where you came from, I think. I forged them myself,” Wanda explained, letting a soft red light flow from her fingertips to demonstrate. “Do you like it?”

Vision nodded and looked her deep in the eye. “I will cherish it, Wanda,” he replied before handing her a box as well. When Wanda looked at the intricate pattern of necklace inside of it, she ran her finger over the silver and ruby pendant. “They called your brother Quicksilver, did they not?”

Wanda beamed and immediately threw her arms around him. Millie was pretty sure that had he not already been a deep shade of purple, they might have seen a blush creep onto his cheeks.

“We rigged it so that they’d get each other, right?” Natasha asked, leaning in to whisper to Steve and Millie.

Millie nodded. “Who else would have known what to get either of them?”

Natasha laughed softly. “All right. I’m next and I had Millie. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the chance to wrap it,” she admitted sheepishly. “So close your eyes.” Millie looked at her skeptically but closed her eyes and let Natasha take her by the shoulders and guide her to turn around. “And...open.”

Millie opened her eyes and gasped.

“Hey kid, Merry Christmas,” Clint drawled with a lopsided grin. His arm was slung around Laura, who Millie had still only met informally over video chats with Clint from back on the farm. Clint had a squirming baby in his arms and two small children seemed to peek around at the others from behind their parents’ legs.

“I’m pretty sure that Nat went over the budget we agreed on,” Rhodey pointed out as Millie launched herself at the Bartons to greet them with a big hug.

* * *

The Bartons, it turned out, had made the trip not only to surprise the team for Christmas but also to stay for the New Years' Eve Party that Tony had invited them all to. 

Based on everything Rhodey and Natasha had told them about parties Tony had thrown in the past, the team was reluctantly heading to Manhattan and anticipating a night of flowing liquor, debauchery, and photo-hungry journalists. They were surprised, however, to find that it was a much smaller affair with dinner, drinks, and music -- primarily consisting of the team, Pepper, Happy, Maria Hill, and Nick Fury.

Millie occupied herself through most of the party by entertaining Clint and Laura’s children. She danced with Lila and brought a few pieces of robotics from her lab to awe Cooper. Baby Nate took very little entertaining and instead seemed content just cooing up at her whenever she made a funny face at them.

“I knew they’d love you,” Clint grinned as he walked up to them, scooping up Lila who burst into a fit of giggles. “Offer to come out and visit stands whenever you need a break.”

Millie smiled warmly at him. “Especially now that you see I can babysit,” she teased.

Clint pulled her in for a sideways hug. “You had a rough year, Millie. I’m glad we could make it out to help you start this one off right.”

Laura walked up to join them. Millie had immediately taken to her on Christmas, something about her warmth and kindness reminding her of her own mother. Rather than it making her sad, she found her presence to be a comfort and the two had talked in the kitchen on Christmas Day for hours while Millie helped take care of Nate so Laura could enjoy herself a bit.

“I’m going to put the kids to bed,” she told them, gathering up Nate and herding her two other protesting children towards the elevator. 

“But I want to stay up until midnight!” Cooper protested. Lila, meanwhile, skirted around her mother to run back to Millie and hug her tightly around her waist.

“Good night Mimi,” she chirped before running back after her mother.

“Mimi?” Millie questioned Clint as the elevator doors slid closed. 

“We’re trying to give Nate something easier to learn to say,” he reasoned. 

They were soon joined by the rest of the team and relaxed around the tower. “Almost like old times,” Millie muttered to herself. 

“We regrettably haven’t had much luck tracking down your cousin, Miss. Banner,” Fury remarked, eyeing her carefully. 

Millie did her best not to fidget as she felt the rest of them shift their gazes towards her, too. Since arriving at the Tower earlier in the day and seeing the former director of SHIELD, Millie had been working carefully to hide her accent or avoid speaking near him at all. While the team trusted him enough and he had been the one to bring them all together, Millie had heard enough stories about his sometimes deceptive nature and knew about the bad taste SHIELD had left in Steve’s mouth to be apprehensive.

Maria broke the tension by hitting him in the arm. She looked at Millie. “He knows.”

This, however, did not make Millie feel any better.

“I helped backstop your new identity,” Fury explained. “While I understand why you might not trust me, I hope you can understand that I feel some responsibility for not uncovering HYDRA’s existence within SHIELD sooner. Perhaps if I had, you and your family wouldn’t have been subjected to their torment.”

“No one could have stopped them,” Millie told him, shaking her head. “I appreciate your help, and the assistance you gave to my friends in Sokovia,” she told him. He nodded back to her, a peaceful understanding born from a single gesture.

“Is it time?” Sam asked, walking over from the bar with a few bottles of beer in hand, giving one to Clint and one to Rhodey.

“It’s time,” Steve agreed.

Millie’s brow furrowed in confusion, she glanced at the time. “It is only eleven thirty,” she pointed out.

“Just in time then,” Maria chimed in, stepping away from the group for a moment. When Millie only looked more confused and frustrated, Tony chuckled.

“We got you a little something, kid.”

“We agreed to one gift each for Secret Santa,” she said, shooting an accusatory look at Steve. “I did not get anyone else anything.”

Maria walked back over with a large box wrapped in shiny red paper and topped with a gold bow and set it down on the table in the center of where they were all seated. 

“One guess at who picked the wrapping,” Clint joked earning him a playful glare from Tony.

“Just open it,” Steve insisted.

Almost reluctantly, Millie lifted the top of the box and gasped as she peered inside. She reached in and pulled out several familiar framed photographs as tears welled up in her eyes. “How…” she started but found her voice too thick with emotion.

“When we were clearing your records earlier in the year, we recovered personal items from your family’s old home,” Maria explained. “That’s how we were able to create some of those photos for you and Bruce. Doctored based on the originals. But we had to hang on to them as evidence for a while as we worked on tracking down HYDRA.”

Millie ran her finger over a photo of her as a child holding Luka who had just been brought home from the hospital.

“I didn’t mention it then because I didn’t know how long it would take for us to get them back. We started the paperwork shortly after the Battle of Sokovia and it took up until a couple of weeks ago to get all of them back.”

“Millie?” Steve started. She was currently staring down at a photo of her parents at their wedding, blinking back tears. He moved from his spot on the sofa opposite her to kneel in front of her. “Are you okay? Is this too much?”

Millie choked back a soft sob but shook her head. “It’s perfect,” she whispered hoarsely. “I thought everything I had of them was gone. For so long I could only remember them the way I saw them last, with HYDRA. Now I can remember them like this. Like they truly were.” She looked up at everyone and smiled brightly at them. “Thank you so much.”

She hugged Steve tightly before quickly moving around the room and hugging the rest of the team. She squeezed Maria Hill for a particularly long time and the usually reserved woman stiffened for a moment before returning the hug in earnest. “Merry Christmas, Millie.”

“I think Clint is right,” Millie announced moments later dabbing at her eyes. “I think this is the start of a very good new year.” She lifted the glass of champagne she’d been handed earlier. “To family, old and new.”

“To family.” the rest of the team agreed in unison, tipping their glasses in the air as well.

* * *

“Millie! Now!” Sam exclaimed.

Millie took a deep breath and took off in a run, moving in a zigzag pattern to avoid enemy fire. Ahead of her, she spotted where she needed to be, launching herself at the ten-foot-high wall and using the rope hanging from it to climb her way up. A shot whizzed by her ear, and she moved as quickly as she could.

“Rhodes!” she shouted, leaping off the edge to the other side of the wall. She dropped only a few feet before Rhodey swept in, catching her and carrying her to the target location just as Wanda was touching down as well. Millie quickly examined the device in front of her that she needed to disarm while Wanda projected a shield around them.

“I’ll try and give you cover,” Rhodey promised as he sped off again.

“How much time do you need?” Sam asked through the comms devices nestled in her ear.

“Thirty seconds,” Millie responded, pulling her small toolkit from her belt and starting to work. A warning signal flashed across the screen. “Uh -- forty five.”

Wanda frowned, glancing over her shoulder. “The timer says twenty. I can try to contain the blast.”

Millie ignored her as she worked frantically, working with her wire cutters, managing to stop the timer before it reached zero. She sighed and then let out a victorious cheer, smiling at Wanda and turning her back on the device. The two women giggled and high fived.

“Bang,” Natasha interrupted in a dull voice, stepping out from the corner with a gun trained on Wanda. Millie tried to move to sweep Natasha’s legs out from under her, but was too late. She was now staring down the barrel of the gun. “Double bang,” Natasha continued before walking past them to the device they’d just disarmed. She flipped open a panel and pressed a button. “Really big bang.”

“Simulation failed,” a computerized voice announced as Sam and Rhodey touched down beside Millie and Wanda.

“Okay,” Steve said loudly, walking down from his position on the observation deck of the training facility. “What went wrong?”

“Nat cheated?” Rhodey supplied.

“I stepped off the ledge a second too soon and Rhodey had to compensate. It threw off our landing and then we forgot to check the perimeter,” Millie replied, sitting down on the floor with a huff. “Then when I disarmed it, I forgot to check for and disable the manual override.”

“It’s not all on you, Millie,” Sam told her gently.

“I’m the weak link,” she replied in frustration. “Let’s run another one, I can do better.”

Steve shook his head. “It’s getting late, let’s call it a day. Shower, grab some lunch. We’ll start again tomorrow.”

The rest of the team cleared out but Millie stayed put on the mat, she fell back onto her back and looked up at the ceiling with a huff.

“You’ve improved a lot. You scaled that wall in record time.”

“Great, I can beat enemies if we challenge them to a highly controlled indoor climbing race,” she deadpanned back, barely picking her head up off the mat to look at Steve as he peered down at her.

“Well, you kept getting hit by enemy fire in January, look how far you’ve made it in four months,” he offered with a well-meaning smile before holding his hand out and hoisting her up to her feet. “Honestly, Millie, we’re not even going to put you into the field except as a last resort. You’re a much bigger asset on comms, helping monitor activity and gear for Sam and Rhodey.”

“Basically I am equipment manager,” she groused.

“No,” Steve insisted. “You’re more than that and you know it.”

“I want to go out in the field.”

“And when it’s absolutely necessary and you are ready, you can.”

“You’ve started to take Wanda with you,” Millie pointed out.

“Giving Wanda some practical application on how to control her powers is important, it prepares her for unexpected changes so she can get more of a handle and know her strength,” Steve reasoned, looking at her. “We can’t take any unnecessary risks, having you both in the field is just too many variables.”

Reluctantly, she nodded.

“Want to help me with lunch?”

She shook her head. “I’m going to practice on my own for another hour, I’ll meet you up there.”

* * *

April brought Tony back to the Avengers Facility, promising new upgrades. He’d been working on his newest AI system, FRIDAY, since implementing it in Sokovia and he wanted to oversee its installation for the team and work on some new projects with Millie.

“I’ve been working on something I want to show you,” he told her the first evening he arrived before he pulled up the details on the large screen in the lab.

Millie’s eyes widened as she leaned in to get a closer look. “Tony, is this…”

“Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing,” he supplied.

She blinked, staring at him. “You know the acronym for that would be BARF, yes?”

He cringed a bit and nodded. “Yeah, I’ve got to work on that. But it’s a project I’ve been working on for a while and then it fell to the back burner until I realized you could benefit from it, too.”

“Me?” she asked.

“What if it could help you, after everything that’s happened.”

Millie considered this for a moment before reaching out and placing her hand over his. “That’s very kind, Tony. And I appreciate the offer and the genius behind this,” she gestured to the screen. “But we all keep saying that I came out of what happened with HYDRA stronger, and you all gave me the gift of happy memories with my family back at New Years. What happened to us wasn’t defined by anything I did or could have done to prevent it. I don’t want to...remember it differently just to sleep better at night. Because the truth is, what happened makes me work harder during the day to help the team and keep anything like it from happening to anyone else.”

Tony turned his hand over and squeezed her fingertips with a sad smile. “I’ve used it.”

She smiled. “I’m glad. If it helped you, I’m glad. And I know it will help others, too. It just won’t change anything for me if I use it. Though, I’m happy to help you tinker with it if you need anything.”

He nodded. “I’m speaking at MIT next month to announce a new foundation, I’m going to present it. Want to help me figure out the logistics?”

Millie’s computer monitor emitted a loud alarm, causing Tony to jump in his seat at the next workstation. “What the hell is that?” he asked.

Her eyes lit up as she rushed across the room to look at her monitor. “Got you, you bastard,” she whispered. “FRIDAY?” she called out.

“Yes, Millie?” the AI replied politely.

“Get Steve and gather the others. Tell them I’ve got Rumlow.”

Moments later, everyone gathered around the conference room table on the main level and looked at her expectantly. “Back in September when I was…”

“Working yourself to death?” Sam offered before jolting, Natasha clearly having kicked him under the table.

“Busy and we became aware that Brock Rumlow, former undercover HYDRA operative and SHIELD Strike Team Leader…”

“We’re familiar with him, Millie,” Steve said gently.

“Yes, sorry. I’ve never briefed before,” she said hastily, earning a fond smile from the others. “Anyway, at the time, I’d just finished a few online programming courses and I tried to put together a running search on anything that might lead to where he is. Based on the injuries he sustained and the medical equipment he would need to manage the pain from his burns and public records of his maneuvers from the SHIELD files that were dumped online to try to pick out any attacks he may be behind or predict his next movements.”

Steve lifted an eyebrow. “And you found something?”

“A string of assaults on police stations with the weapons showing up afterwards on the black market, typically sold to terrorists,” she pulled up the articles on the main screen of the conference room for them to see.

“That doesn’t sound like HYDRA’s M.O.”

“That’s because I don’t think he’s working for HYDRA. After all, you finished them off in Sokovia. I think that he’s working for hire.”

“A mercenary?” Sam questioned, earning him a nod.

“Do you have a location?” Steve asked.

Millie nodded. “It’s just a prediction based on their recent attacks, but I think it’s here,” she said, pulling up a map and satellite images. “Lagos.”

The room was silent for a moment. “Look. I know it’s a stretch, but I trust the algorithm I designed.”

Natasha, Sam, and Steve all glanced at each other for a moment before Steve nodded. “Wheels up in thirty.”

“I’ll back a bag,” Millie nodded.

“No,” Steve shook his head. “We’ll head out there with Sam, Nat, and Wanda. Rhodey is in Washington D.C., Tony has his speaking engagement at M.I.T., you and Vision stay here and keep monitoring the situation.”

Sam, Natasha, and Wanda all stood and left to pack their bags, Vision trailing after Wanda to offer assistance.

“Steve,” she started.

“Millie, this is good work, but we can’t risk you out in the field. You’re not ready. If Rumlow is coordinating a smash and grab at a police station, you’re better suited here.”

“But Steve that’s the thing!” she exclaimed. “I don’t think he’s actually targeting the police station. I think that’s what he wants us to think.”

“How do you figure?”

“Based on the information I could pull off of the dark web…”

“You’re on the dark web now?” Tony interjected. “Baby’s all grown up. I’m so proud. We should get you a cool hacker handle.” He quieted down when Steve glared at him and Millie continued on.

“Based on what I could pull, the weapons aren’t benefiting any one specific terrorist organization or arms dealer,” she stated.

“So it’s his way of making petty cash.”

“Too petty,” she informed him. “The expenses he’d incur for medical supplies alone -- it doesn’t add up. I think he’s trying to create a trail to explain what he’s doing in Lagos and put the police on high alert around the station if we go in guns ready. I think his target is something or someone else.”

“And what’s that?” Steve asked.

“I don’t know. It’s just a theory.”

“Listen, Millie. I worked with Rumlow at SHIELD. He’s not the brightest bulb, what you’re describing seems a little too elaborate for him. I know you want to help, but this will be fast, we’ll go in, stop the attack on the station and arrest him. I’ve got to go get ready. We’ll have you on comms once we get in the air.”

Steve left and Millie plopped down into a chair, staring after him. After a moment, Tony sighed and placed a hand on her shoulder. “He has a point, it’s safer for you here. If you want you can come to M.I.T?”

She shook her head and he sighed, kissing the top of her head before heading out to make his own trip.

* * *

Tony returned late that evening and Millie immediately noticed that something was wrong. She called out his name and he blinked a few times, as if only just then noticing that she was in the room.

“Tony, what happened?” she asked gently, steering him to sit. He looked pale and visibly upset, so she felt his forehead. “Are you sick?”

He shook his head before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a folded photograph. “This is Spencer, I met his mother today.”

“Is he an M.I.T student?” she asked curiously.

“No. He was part of a humanitarian mission to Sokovia last year. To Novi Grad.”

“Oh, Tony,” she sighed, pulling him into a hug. “It’s not your fault.”

“How often can we get away with saying that? It was ULTRON? I created ULTRON. It was Killian or Hammer? Didn’t I push them both into their actions with my own arrogance?” he spat out. “We’ve gone too far. Gotten too big and forgot…”

He trailed off and stared at the photo. 

“Boss?” FRIDAY interrupted him. “I’m picking up some news broadcasts, you two are going to want to see this.”

Millie gasped as the television turned on and showed the chaos in Lagos, people clamoring to get away from an explosion. The crumbling concrete from the building directly beside another video playing simultaneously of Steve and the others chasing Rumlow’s team through the streets. Officials were still searching through the rubble to finalize the count of injured and dead. 

After a moment, Tony shrugged off her embrace. “I have to go.”

“Go where?”

“I just...have to go. Rhodey will be back in a couple of hours. Let him know what happened in Lagos.”

* * *

When the team returned, exhausted, and shaken by the turn of events in Lagos, Millie occupied herself by looking after Wanda who was the most obviously distraught. When her friend seemed inconsolable, Millie allowed Vision to step in and offered to go prepare them all some tea.

She found Steve in the kitchen and silently moved around him to put the kettle on.

“You can say it,” he said as she clicked the burner on.

“Say what?”

“That you were right. He wasn’t hitting the police station.” Millie was silent for a moment and he looked at her. “Go ahead.”

“Steve, you did what you needed to do. You were right, I was operating on hunches. I wanted to go with you and be useful, but I know you were right to keep me home because I trust you as our leader. I will  _ always _ trust you as our leader. I’m not going to tell you I told you so. Do not doubt the decisions you made. This time I was right, there’s a good chance the next nine times I will be wrong.” She put her hand on his forearm. “What happened was not your fault and it was not Wanda’s. It was Brock Rumlow’s fault and his alone.”

Steve looked at her with a pained expression in his eyes. “When we were fighting, before he detonated the bomb, he said some things about Bucky.”

Millie sighed, stepping towards Steve and pulling him into a hug. “For the first time, I truly wish my powers would develop and enable me to bring back the dead so I could bring him back and kick him in the groin,” she murmured darkly, causing Steve to bark out a laugh against her shoulder.

* * *

“Millie,” Natasha’s voice rang out from her computer monitor in the lab and she swiveled in her chair to smile at the redhead.

“Hey Nat, is it time for dinner already?”

“No. Tony just drove back onto the property. With the Secretary of State.” When Millie only looked back at her blankly, Natasha sighed. “Secretary Thaddeus Ross.”

“Ross? As in...Bruce’s Thaddeus Ross?” Millie exclaimed. When Natasha nodded, she frowned. “Is this about Lagos? Is Wanda in trouble? Do you think he found Bruce? I’ll be right up.”

“No,” Natasha shook her head firmly. “I don’t know what this is about but I have a bad feeling about it. And even though your identity is well backstopped, we have no idea what information Ross had about Bruce’s family before we edited you into it. Stay down there, stay quiet. FRIDAY will let you know when he’s gone.”

“But --”

“Thaddeus Ross wanted Bruce to become a weapon for the United States government after he turned into the Hulk. If he figures out that we have an unknown enhanced here who spent time in HYDRA control, he’s either going to get very afraid or worse, suddenly think he’s very clever. Stay.”

Millie frowned as Natasha ended the video call. FRIDAY dimmed the lights in the lab and powered down the elevator across the hall that led back up to the main floor.

“Overkill FRIDAY?”

“Power will resume once Secretary Ross has left the premises.”

* * *

“I’m sorry, did I just mishear you or did you just agree with me?” Millie heard Tony ask as she finally was able to make her way back upstairs to the others.

“Oh,” Natasha sighed. “I want to take it back now.” They continued to banter back and forth before Tony declared victory in whatever debate they were having.”

“What is going on?” she asked as she stepped further into the room. She looked at the others, most of whom regarded her like they’d forgotten she was in the complex at all. Then her eyes focused on Steve who was staring down at his phone.

“I have to go,” he said abruptly before standing up and hurrying out of the room. Gazes drifted from her to Steve, brows furrowing in confusion. Tony opened his mouth to say something witty but was silenced by a threatening glare from Natasha.

Millie frowned and went after Steve, finding him in the staircase with his head down and hand covering his face. “Steve?” she said gently, but he didn’t look up. “Stevie?” It slipped out, but he took a sharp intake of breath so she knew he’d heard her. “What’s wrong? Did Ross do something…”

“It’s Peggy,” he said softly, finally looking up at her, his blue eyes clouded over with sadness and regret. “She’s gone.”

Millie sighed, reaching out for him and wrapping her arms around him as he allowed himself to cry for a moment. She stood there, rubbing a comforting hand over his back. When his shoulders ceased shaking, she dared to speak. “When is the funeral?”

“A couple of days from now in London.”

“I can go with you if you don’t want to go alone,” she offered.

Steve blinked a few times, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. He looked at her for a moment before frowning. “You can’t,” he said gently before he cursed under his breath.

“If you’re cursing something is definitely wrong,” she pointed out with a weak smile. “What else is happening? What did Ross want?”

“He wants us to sign an agreement, one that would...essentially make the Avengers answerable to the United Nations. It would put limitations on where we could get involved in the event of an incursion without an invitation from the U.N.,” he explained.

“You can’t do that,” she insisted. “What are you supposed to do, wait for an engraved invitation if aliens invade again?”

“Millie, it doesn’t stop there,” he told her. “It would require any enhanced individual to register and submit biometric data, a power analysis, and be tracked.”

She frowned. “What does that mean for me?” she questioned. “Helen’s tests show that on a cellular level, I’m enhanced but I don’t have any powers yet. Would they...try to find out what they were?”

Taking in the way she quickly began to panic, Steve shook his head adamantly, cupping her face in her hands to force her to look at him. “We won’t let that happen, Millie.”

Millie sighed, looking up at him. “You need to pack for London.”

“I need to sort this out with the team before I leave. Come on,” he led her back upstairs to the others.

“Steve, is your tantrum over?” Tony asked, earning glares from the majority of the room.

“I have to go to London,” Steve said, not elaborating further. “But first we need to figure out what to do about Millie.” When the others stared, he elaborated. “We can’t hide Wanda unfortunately, the world knows about her. But no one knows about Millie.”

“But depending on what Ross knows about Banner’s family history,” Natasha started. “He could know on sight that she’s not really Bruce’s cousin.”

“And no matter how thorough Hill and Fury were, we have to assume that at some point if you dig deep enough her identity would raise more flags than a regular engineer residing with the Avengers already would,” Steve nodded. “If they even just managed to acquire a sample of her DNA, we know what they’d find. She’s something new -- enhanced DNA with no display of power defined.” He leveled a gaze at Rhodey and Tony. “I don’t care how much faith you have in the U.N. and the Accords, we don’t know how they’d react to an unknown like that.”

Rhodey sighed, knowing that this was precisely why they’d trained both Millie and Wanda in certain skills over the past year. “Okay, so we have to send her somewhere.”

“I won’t just leave Wanda and the rest of you to be forced to sign this ridiculous agreement.”

“I already signed,” Tony admitted. He winced a bit when Millie seemed to shrink back from his confession, as though it had physically caused her pain. “Millie, I wasn’t thinking about how --”

“You bet your ass you weren’t!” Millie exclaimed. Steve didn’t even chide her for being crass. “Are you so desperate to alleviate your own guilt that you would subject other people to something less than freedom? Tagged and sampled like cattle?” she spat out. Steve reached out and placed a calming hand on her shoulder. She drew in a deep breath. “I still won’t leave Wanda and the others.”

“Millie,” Wanda interrupted, standing up and reaching for her hand. “Steve is right, they cannot hide me. But you need to go somewhere safe. I will be alright.” The two women shared a meaningful look and Wanda pulled her into a comforting embrace.

“The question is where is safe?”

Tony took a breath. “I have a suggestion.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise to get back to updating regularly again. Thanks for staying with me. A certain super soldier will be officially joining us in chapter 10! That's just two posts away.

**Author's Note:**

> If you like my work, please leave some feedback. If you really like it, [consider getting me a cup of coffee.](http://ko-fi.com/raggedypanda)


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